Blowers of SunExcrement: Nahua Lost-Wax Gold Casting in the Florentine Codex Book 9, Chapter 16 Introduction and translation by Allison Caplan University of California, Santa Barbara, USA This article presents a translation, analysis, and brief historiography of the Nahuatllanguage account of lost-wax gold casting that appears in Book 9, Chapter 16 of the central Mexican Florentine Codex (1575–77). Introduction An early colonial account of Indigenous Nahua lost-wax gold casting, written in the central Mexican Nahuatl language, is presented in the ninth book of the Florentine Codex, or Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España. A twelve-book work on Nahua culture, belief, and language, the Historia general was begun in 1558 under the direction of the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and completed over the course of several decades. Meant to benefit newly arrived missionaries in the region, the project nonetheless arose from the varied contributions of Sahagún; Nahua elders from the towns of Tepepulco and Tlatelolco; and younger Nahua scholars, scribes, and artists based at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, including Martín Jacobita, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, and Mateo Severino.1 As early as 1558, Sahagún and four Nahua scholars began interviewing Nahua elders and composing the first drafts of the Nahuatl texts, known as the Primeros memoriales (1559–61) and the Manuscrito de Tlatelolco (1561–65), both held today in Madrid’s Biblioteca del Real Palacio and Real Academia de la Historia.2 By 1575, following major delays, the Nahuatl texts were copied in a clean hand into the right column of the Florentine Codex manuscript and paired with Spanish texts and painted images in the left column. Arising both Blowers of Sun-Excrement 215 from Sahagún’s expressed interest in documenting the Nahuatl language and from the layered contributions and interests of the Nahua elders, scholars, and artists, the codex encapsulates complex and varied forms of Nahuatl expression that show close engagement with oral tradition and provide some of the most significant insights into Nahua cultural expression of any extant source. Book nine’s sixteenth chapter, on lost-wax gold casting, survives in two versions: the Florentine Codex version of 1575–77 and an earlier version, dated 1563–65, in the Manuscrito de Tlatelolco of the Real Academia de la Historia.3 Unlike most of the Florentine Codex, the contents of this particular chapter are written exclusively in Nahuatl, with only brief Spanish commentary; the left column is occupied instead by paintings portraying the process (fig. 1).4 The chapter, which appears in a book dedicated to artists and merchants, describes the lostwax casting process first as practiced in the past and then as done in the colonial present.5 In lost-wax casting, a form is elaborated in wax, encased, and then heated, melting the wax and leaving a vacated mold, into which molten gold is poured. The technique has been used around the globe since at least the fifth century BCE, with independent inventions attributed to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.6 The traditional technique used by the Nahua people of central Mexico likely originated in the ancient Andes and spread north along maritime trade routes, reaching southern and western Mexico around 800 CE.7 As in the Andes, casting in central Mexico was used principally to produce elite adornments in precious metals, including necklaces, lip plugs, bells, and ingenious, movable ornaments in the shape of people, plants, and animals. Among Nahuas, such shining, gold adornments carried special significance as items made from a metal understood to be a physical excretion of the sun and were said to shine in the same manner as the solar body, gushing rays of sunlight (tōnamē yotia) and illuminating their surroundings (tlanēxtia).8 The chapter is significant for the insight it provides into Nahua interpretations and cultural assimilations of a historically appropriated technology. In the text, Nahua thinkers represent the technology in language, employing key analogies with other, named techniques of making and drawing out the process’s inner logic and meaning. The narrative thereby reflects the conceptual integration of an appropriated technology into Nahua art, religion, and culture, in the process giving rise to distinctive practices of a pan-regional technology.9 In the colonial moment of its writing, the text further contrasts this historical art with the contemporary incorporation of European casting materials, techniques, and products. The text presents traditional gold casting as a process of building up layers, starting with the inner casting core and proceeding outward. The chapter begins with goldworkers mixing finely ground charcoal and potter’s clay into a paste that they harden in the sun. In an unusual approach, the casters then meticulously carve the hardened substance’s surface, creating a fully formed sculpture that will serve as the casting core. The goldworkers next roll out a fine sheet of golden beeswax that they use to enshroud the sculpted core, making sure that the wax adheres intimately to its contours and crevices. Finally, the goldworkers encase the wax skin in layers of diluted and roughly ground 216 West 86th V 28 N2 Fig. 1 Florentine Codex, book 9, fol. 50r. Unknown scribe and artist (Nahua), Colegio de Santa Cruz, Tlatelolco, Mexico, 1575–77. Pigment and ink on European paper, 12¼ × 8 in. (31 × 21.2 cm). MS Mediceo Palatino 219, f. 358r, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. By concession of MiBAC. Further reproduction by any means is forbidden. charcoal, and then attach a tubelike wax channel and a crucible for the gold. This entire construction is placed in a fiery kiln, melting both wax and gold, and allowing the latter to pour through the channel into the casting matrix and take the place of the former. The narrative ends with the casters perfecting the goldwork’s color and luminosity, burnishing it, bathing it with alum (tlālxocotl), heating it, and rubbing it with a mixture of “yellow earth” (tlālcōztli) and salt. At the end of the process, the goldworkers have a finished gold casting that “shines out rays of light” (motōnamēyotia), like the sun itself. The narrative’s naming choices reveal Nahua interpretations and localizations of the methods and logic of traditional casting.10 Terms for the gold-casters’ techniques hearken subtly or overtly to other, local making traditions, including tortilla preparation, ceramics, codex painting, stone- and woodworking, and even the ritual wrapping of god-bundles known as tlaquimilōlli. The text designates charcoal (tecolli) as the prime material for creating designs in gold castings, to the exclusion of other component materials like clay or wax. In so doing, the authors may imply a material connection to the ancient Mesoamerican art of codex painting, which also uses charcoal-based ink for the black frame lines Blowers of Sun-Excrement 217 that define painted designs.11 The Nahuatl names for casting’s major raw materials—wax and gold—likewise suggest a local interpretation that lost-wax gold casting is structured by a fundamental identification between “bee-excrement” (x cohcuitlatl) and “sun-excrement” (teōcuitlatl). Two forms of “excrement,” beeswax and gold, were both golden, malleable materials with low melting points that could thus substitute for one another conceptually and materially. From this vantage point, wax serves as a stand-in for the gold, as it is first worked around the charcoal casting core to materialize the artwork’s body and form. When the wax-filled mold, connecting channel, and gold-bearing crucible are later heated, these two materials notionally melt simultaneously, allowing the wax to transmute into the gold analogue that emerges when the charcoal investment is broken open. The narrative also reflects on ideas of form and representation, incorporating Nahua artistic, religious, and social thought. The described process requires that artists first carve the design in meticulous detail on the surface of the casting core and then transfer it to the covering wax sheet via overlay. The technique diverges strongly from other global traditions, in which artists use the core only as a rough armature to hold wax that they form via direct modeling. Indeed, the Florentine Codex omits any discussion of the limited use of wax modeling known from surviving Nahua artworks, which show evidence of the use of false-filigree work and incising to adorn and decorate the basic form. In its emphasis on covering, the Nahuatl narrative instead figures the wax and gold as skins that envelop the core’s surface and only thereby take its form. In this analogy with skins, the text suggests conceptual ties to the patron of metalworkers, Xipe Totec (“Our Lord with the Flayed Skin”), a teōtl, or god, who was represented wearing a flayed, human skin.12 In its longest and most colorful discussion, the text describes how this artistic process gives rise to different representations, from a figurine of a foreign Huastec man, to a variety of reptiles, birds, and fish, to a necklace lined with tinkling bells (fig. 2). Providing insight into Nahua art theory, the text explains how each identity requires certain characteristic body parts and behaviors, described in the text as the artwork’s in xtli, in yōllōtl, “the face/eyes, the heart,” a concept known principally from Nahua educational theory.13 Understood alongside actual Nahua goldworks, which include moving arms, legs, and even tongues, the text suggests an underlying approach to representation as a function of both form and figurative motion. The conceptual dimensions of the Nahuatl narrative highlighted in this translation were largely obscured in its two prior English translations, which instead presented the text as a mundane technical account. The earliest translation of the passage was done by Eduard Seler into French in 1890, based on the version in the Manuscrito de Tlatelolco. His translation gave a general approximation of the original but was imprecise in its rendering of both the text and the casting process and included several outright errors.14 These problems were compounded when, in 1920, the US scholar Marshall Saville published the text’s first English translation, done exclusively from the French translation, which retained Seler’s errors and added multiple new ones.15 Working with a translation of a translation, scholars at the time focused narrowly on assessing whether the chapter depicted lost-wax casting accurately.16 In 1959 Arthur J. O. Anderson 218 West 86th V 28 N2 Fig. 2 Florentine Codex, book 9, fol. 50v. Unknown scribe and artist (Nahua), Colegio de Santa Cruz, Tlatelolco, Mexico, 1575–77. Pigment and ink on European paper, 12¼ × 8 in. (31 × 21.2 cm). MS Mediceo Palatino 219, f. 358v, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. By concession of MiBAC. Further reproduction by any means is forbidden. and Charles E. Dibble published a new English translation of the Florentine Codex version, done from the original Nahuatl. Likely responding to the ongoing debate over the text’s accuracy, Anderson and Dibble worked with metallurgy specialists Dudley T. Easby Jr. and Herbert Maryon to produce a translation that could be mapped onto the known casting process.17 In so doing, however, they also translated key Nahuatl terms directly into English metallurgical terminology and privileged readability over maintaining a sense of the Nahuatl’s structure and phrasing, ultimately making the text’s technical aspects visible in ways that obscured its conceptual and literary dimensions.18 The absence of viable alternate English translations and lack of widespread fluency in Nahuatl among scholars perpetuated a diminished appreciation of the original text and its various levels of signification. The new translation here presented stays intentionally close to the original and provides the first published linguistic analysis of the Nahuatl to promote its direct study. Foregrounding the original language in this way makes clear its authors’ understanding of the account as a body of conceptually and philosophically engaged knowledge from Nahua tradition that, as the authors explain, continued to shape gold-casting even as the art experienced intense transformations in their own colonial moment. Blowers of Sun-Excrement 219 Florentine Codex Book 9, Chapter 1619 [1] Inic castolloce capitulo: In c caxtōl-oc-cē capitulo Sixteenth chapter, oncâ mitoa, in iuhqui ic tlachichioa, î iehoantin teucuitlapitzque. oncān m(o)-ihtoa in iuhqui c tla-chih-ch hua-h in yehhuān-tin teō-cuitlap tz-queh where it is said how they, the “blowers of sun-excrement” [gold-casters], make things.20 In iehoantin teucuitlapitzque: In yehhuān-tin teō-cuitla-p tz-queh They who are blowers of sun-excrement, in tecultica, ioan xicocuitlatica tlatlalia, tlacuiloa: in tecol-tica -huān x coh-cuitla-tica tla-tlālia-h tla-(i)hcuiloa-h who compose, who draw with charcoal and with “bee-excrement” [beeswax], inic quipitza teucuitlatl, in coztic, ioan iztac: in c qui-p tza-h teō-cuitla-tl, in coz-ti-c, -huān iztā-c in this way blow the sun-excrement, which is yellow and white [gold and silver].21 [2] inic ompeuhtica intultecaio, in c on-pēuh-ti-cah in-tōl-tēca-yo-ø Their artistry begins in this way: achto iehoatl tlaiacana, quinpalehuia in teculli, achto yehhuā-tl tla-yacāna quim-palēhuia in tecol-li first, it—the charcoal—leads, aids them. achto uel quiteci, quicuechoa, quicuechtilia. achto huel qui-teci-h qui-cuēchoa-h qui-cuēch-ti-lia-h First, they grind it well, grind it finely, grind it most finely.22 Auh in oquitezque: āuh in ō-qui-tez-queh Once they have ground it, niman connamictia quineloa achiton [conçoquitl], 23 niman c-on-nāmic-tia-h qui-neloa-h achih-tōn cōm(i)-zoqui-tl then they pair with it, mix with it a little bit of potter’s clay iehoatl in tlaltzacutli in comitl mochioa, yehhuā-tl in tlāl-tzauc-tli in cōmi-tl mo-ch hua —it is the type of sticky clay that is made into ceramic pots—, 220 West 86th V 28 N2 ic quipoloa, ic quixaqualoa ic quimatzacutilia in teculli, c qui-pōloa-h c qui-xacualoa-h c qui-mā-tzauc-ti-lia-h in tecol-li with which they mix the charcoal into a dough, with which they knead it, with which they pack it with their hands, ic tlaquaoa, [ic]24 tepitzaui. c tla-cuāhua c tep tzahui with which it toughens, with which it hardens. Auh no quicencauhque, auh nō qui-cen-cāuh-que-h Once they have also prepared it: çan oc iuhqui in quitlatlascaloa: tonaian quimamana, zan oc iuhqui in qui-tlah-tla-(i)xca-loa-h tōna-yān qui-mah-mana-h just as if they are making them like tortillas, they lay them each out in the sun; ioan cequi çanoquiuhqui [in] [tlaçoquitlalili], 25 tonaian quitlatlaliaia:26 -huān cequi zan oc iuhqui in tla-zoqui-tlāli-li-h tōna-yān qui-tla-tlālia-ya and for some, just like those who compose ceramics, they placed them each in the sun. omihuitl in oaqui, tepioaqui, tepitzoaqui, tepitzaui. ōm-ilhui-tl in huāqui, tepi-huāqui, tep tz-huāqui, tep tzahui It is two days that they dry, hard-dry, harden-dry, harden. [3] In icoac ouelhoac, in otlaquaoac: In ihcuāc ō-huel-huāc-ø in ō-tlacuāhua-c Once it has dried well, has hardened: çatepan moxixima, mocuicui in teculli, ica tepozhuictontli: zātēpan mo-xi-x ma mo-cuih-cui in tecol-li ca tepoz-huic-tōn-tli then the charcoal is shaved, is chipped, with a little pointed copper tool. çan misnenpehoaltia, moiolcapeoaltia in mocuicui, zan m(o)- x-nen-pēhuā-ltia, mo-yōl-ca-pēhuā-ltia in mo-cuih-cui, That which is chipped is just made to start existing with its face, is made to come to life;27 ça mishuia, moiolhuia, zā m(o)- x-huia, mo-yōl-huia just a face is provided for it, a heart is provided for it, 28 inic ipan quiçaz, in çaço tlein mochioaz: in c -pan quiza-z in zazo tlein mo-ch hua-z so that upon it will emerge, whatever will be made.29 Blowers of Sun-Excrement 221 in aço cuestecatl, aço toueio, iacahuicole, iacacoionqui, in ahzo cuex-tēca-tl, ahzo tohueyo, yaca-huicol-eh, yaca-coyōn-qui If it should be a Huastec, a kinsman, with a jar-handle nose, nose-perforated, istlan mihoa, motlaquicuilo itzcohoatica: x-tlan m -huah mo-tla-cuih-cui-lo tz-coā-tica on his face bearing an arrow, inscribed with an obsidian serpent:30 niman iuh motlaliaia in teculli inic moxiximaia, inic motlatlamachia:31 niman iuh mo-tlāliā-ya in tecol-li in c mo-xi-x ma-ya in c mo-tla-tlamachi-ya then the charcoal was composed like this when it was shaved, when it was designed. itech mana in catlehoatl motlaiehecalhuia 32 in quenami iieliz itlachieliz motlaliz; -tech m(o)-āna in cātlehhuā-tl mo-tla-yeh-yēca-lhuia in quēnamih -ye-liz-ø -tla-chiya-liz-ø mo-tlāli-z From whatever is imitated is taken how its nature, its appearance will be set down. in aço aiotl: in ahzo āyō-tl If it should be a turtle, niman iuh motlalia in teculli in icacallo, niman iuh mo-tlālia in tecol-li in -cah-cal-yo-ø then in this way the charcoal that is its shell is composed, inic molinitiez, iticpa oalitztica in itzontecon: in c mol ni-ti-ye-z, -(i)hti-c-pa huāl-itz-ti-cah in -tzon-tecōn-ø so that its head goes wiggling, comes peering from its interior; molinitica in iquech, ioan in ima; in iuhqui ic mamaçouhtica: mol ni-ti-cah in -quech-ø, -huān in -mā(i)-ø, in iuhqui c mā-mā-zouh-ti-cah: its neck and its arms are wiggling, like it is stretching out both its arms. in anoço tototl ipan quiçaz teucuitlatl, in ahnozo tōtō-tl -pan quiza-z teō-cuitla-tl If a bird will emerge upon the sun-excrement, niman iuh mocuicui, iuh moxima in teculli niman iuh mo-cuih-cui iuh mo-x ma in tecol-li then the charcoal is chipped like this, is shaved like this, inic [mihuiyotia]33 matlapaltia, mocuitlapiltia, mocxitia: in c m(o)-ihhui-yō-tia m(o)-ahtlapal-tia, mo-cuitlapil-tia, mo-(i)cxi-tia so that it is made to have its feathers, to have wings, to have a tail, to have feet. 222 West 86th V 28 N2 anoço michin in mochioaz, ahnozo mich-in in mo-ch hua-z If a fish is what will be made,34 niman iuh moxima in teculli niman iuh mo-x ma in tecol-li then the charcoal is shaved like this, inic moxincaiotia, in c mo-xincā-yō-tia so that it is provided with scales, ioan motlatlalilia in ipatlania iiomotlan, ioan in iuh hicac icuitlapil, maxaltic: -huān mo-tla-tlāli-lia in -patlāni-ya -yōmoh-tlān, -huān in iuh ihca-c -cuitlapilø maxal-ti-c and there are composed for it its fins on its sides and how its tail stands bifurcated. [anoço chacalin]35 anoço cuetzpalin; mochioa,36 [ahnozo chaca-lin] ahnozo cuetzpa-lin mo-ch hua [If a large shrimp] or a lizard is made, motlalia in ima, mo-tlālia in -mā(i)-ø its arms are composed; inic moxima teculli: in çaço catlehoatl motlaiehecalhuia ioioli: in c mo-x ma tecol-li in zazo cātlehhuā-tl mo-tla-yeh-yēca-lhuia yo-yōli the way the charcoal is shaved is [according to] whichever small creature is imitated. anoce teucuitlacozcatl iecauiz, ahnoceh teō-cuitla-cōzca-tl yēcahui-z If instead a gold necklace will be finished, chaiaoacaio tencoiollo, chayāhua-ca-yoh tēn-coyol-yoh covered with scatterers, covered with edge-bells, tlatlatlâmachilli tlasuchiicuilolli. tla-tla-tla-machil-li tla-xōchi-ihcuilo-l-li it is elaborated, it is flower-inscribed. [4] Inicoac [yc]37 omocencauh teculli, in omicuilo, in omocuicuic: in ihcuac c ō-mo-cen-cāuh-ø tecol-li, in ō-m(o)-ihcuilo-h in ō-mo-cuih-cui-c Once the charcoal has been prepared in this way, once it has been designed, once it has been chipped, Blowers of Sun-Excrement 223 niman mopaoaci in sicocuitlatl, moneloa iztac copalli, ic uellaquaoa, niman mo-pāhuaci in x coh-cuitla-tl, mo-neloa iztāc copal-li, c huel tlacuāhua then the beeswax is cooked in a pot; white copal is mixed in, with which it fully hardens. çatepan moiectia motzetzeloa: zātēpan mo-yēc-tia mo-tzetzeloa Afterward, it is purified, it is sifted, inic uel uetzi in itlaiello, itlallo, in çoquixicocuitlatl. in c huel huetzi in -tlayel-yo-ø, -tlāl-yo-ø, in zoqui-x coh-cuitla-tl. so that the filth, the dirt of the mud-beeswax truly falls out. Auh in icoac omocencauh xicocuitlatl: auh in ihcuāc ō-mo-cen-cāuh-ø x coh-cuitla-tl Once the beeswax has been prepared, çatepan itztapaltepan mocanahoa, momimiloa ica quanmaitl mimiltic: zātēpan itztapal-te-pan mo-canāhua mo-mi-miloa ca cuauh-māi-tl mi-mil-ti-c then on a flagstone it is flattened, it is rolled out with a cylindrical wooden rod; ie in uel xipetztic tetl, in [texixipetztli],38 yeh in huel x -petz-ti-c tetl, in te-x -x -petz-tli, it is a truly smooth stone, an intensely smooth stone, ipan mocanaoa momimiloa. -pan mo-canāhua mo-mi-miloa upon which it is flattened, is rolled out. In icoac uel omocacanauh: in ihcuāc huel ō-mo-ca-canāuh-ø Once it has been flattened fully, in ça iuhqui tocapeiotl, in aoccan chicotilaoac, in zā iuhqui toca-peyo-tl in aoc-cān chico-tilāhua-c until it is just like a thin cloth that is no longer anywhere unevenly thick and bunched up, niman itech motlalia in teculli, ic onmisquimiloa: niman -tech mo-tlālia in tecol-li, c on-m(o)- x-quimiloa then it is placed on the charcoal, with which it [the charcoal] is surfaceenshrouded away. auh amo çan iliuiz in itech motlalia, auh ahmō zan lihuiz in -tech mo-tlālia, It is not just thoughtlessly placed on it, 224 West 86th V 28 N2 çan ihuian achitoton mocotontiuh, motectiuh: zan huiyān achih-to-tōn mo-cotōn-ti-uh mo-tec-ti-uh but peacefully and with discretion, little by little, it goes being broken off, it goes being cut, inic çan ipan oncacalaqui iueuetzian onmotlaça, in c zan -pan on-ca-cal-aqui -hue-huetzi-yān on-mo-tlāza, so that upon it [the charcoal], it enters away into each of its crevices, is cast down into them, icacalaquian, iaaquian onmaquia: -cah-cal-aqui-yān -ah-aqui-yān on-m(o)-aquia into each of its entering places, into each of its fitting-in places, it is inserted away, in oncan omocuicuic teculli, in oncān ō-mo-cuih-cui-c tecol-li where the charcoal was chipped. tepiton quauhtontli inic onmoçalotiuh. tepitōn cuauh-tōn-tli in c on-mo-zālo-ti-uh A little stick is that with which it goes being adhered away. [5] Auh inicoac omocencauh, in ie nouiian itech omotlali in sicocuitlatl: Auh in ihcuāc ō-mo-cen-cāuh-ø in ye nōhui-yān -tech ō-mo-tlāli-ø in x cohcuitla-tl Once it has been prepared, once the beeswax has already been laid everywhere on it: çatepan teculatl isco moteca in sicocuitlatl, zātēpan tecol-ā-tl - x-co mo-tēca in x coh-cuitla-tl afterward, charcoal-water is poured on the surface of the beeswax. uel moteci mocuechtilia in teculatl: huel mo-teci mo-cuēch-ti-lia in tecol-ā-tl The charcoal-water is ground well, ground most finely;39 [achi]40 istilaoac in isco ommoteca xicocuitlatl. achi x-tilāhua-c in - x-co on-mo-tēca x coh-cuitla-tl. somewhat thick is that which is poured on the beeswax’s surface. Auh in ie iuhqui in omocencauh: auh in ye iuhqui in ō-mo-cen-cāuh-ø Once it has been prepared in this way, occeppa itech motlalia tlapepecholoni,41 oc-cē-pa -tech mo-tlālia tla-pe-pēcho-lō-ni another time a covering is placed on it, Blowers of Sun-Excrement 225 ic moquimiloa mocentlapachoa c mo-quimiloa mo-cēn-tla-pachoa with which it is enshrouded, covered over completely [i]n oiecauh tlachioalli: inic mocopinaz teucuitlatl[.] in ō-yēcauh-ø tla-ch hua-l-li in c mo-cop na-z teō-cuitla-tl —the finished creation—, so that it will be detached as sun-excrement.42 inin tlapepecholoni çan no teculli, no tlanelolli tlaltzacutli, in n tla-pe-pēcho-lō-ni zan nō tecol-li nō tla-nelo-l-li tlāl-tzauc-tli This covering is simply charcoal, mixed also with sticky clay:43 amo cuechtic, çan papaiastic. ahmō cuēch-ti-c, zan pa-payāx-ti-c it is not finely ground, but like crumbs. In icoac ic omopepecho, inic omocenquimilo tlacopinaloni; in ihcuāc c ō-mo-pe-pēcho-ø, in c ō-mo-cen-quimilo-ø tla-cop na-lō-ni Once it has been covered with it, so that the detaching instrument44 was enshrouded completely, oc no omilhuitl in hoaqui: oc nō ōm-ilhui-tl in huāqui it is another two days that it dries. [6] auh çatepan itech motlalia itoca amilotl, çan no sicocuitlatl: auh zātēpan -tech mo-tlālia -toca ā-m l-yō-tl, zan nō x coh-cuitla-tl Afterward, what is called the “canal,”45 which is simply beeswax, is placed on it: iehoatl in ipiazio mochioa in teucuitlatl, inic oncan calaqui, in icoac oatis: yehhuā-tl in -piyāz-yo-ø mo-ch hua in teō-cuitla-tl, in c oncān cal-aqui, in ihcuāc ō-ā-ti-z it becomes the gold’s tube, so that it [the gold] enters there, once it is molten. auh46 occeppa ipan momana, motlalia, itoca tlacasxotl, auh oc-cē-pa -pan mo-mana mo-tlālia -toca tla-cax-yō-tl Once again, what is called the “vessel” [crucible] is laid, is placed on it:47 çan no teculli in tlachioalli, tlacomololli: zan nō tecol-li in tla-ch hua-l-li tla-comōlo-l-li it is simply charcoal, which is crafted, given a large cavity.48 niman iuh mati niman iuh m(o)-ā-ti, Then it melts in this way: 226 West 86th V 28 N2 motlalia in teculli, oncan mocasxotia mo-tlālia in tecol-li, oncān mo-cax-yō-tia the charcoal is placed where it acts as a vessel; matilia in teucuitlatl, m(o)-ā-ti-lia in teō-cuitla-tl the sun-excrement is melted for it, [ynic]49 çatepan calaqui itech amilotl: inic oncan mopiaziotia, in c zātēpan cal-aqui -tech ā-m l-yō-tl in c oncān mo-piyāz-yō-tia so that afterward it enters the canal; so that, there, it becomes long and narrow; inic ontotoca tlaticpa onnoquihui. in c ōn-totōca tla-(i)hti-c-pa ōn-nōquihui so that it flows away, to the interior, pours away. [7] Auh in icoac omopitz Auh in ihcuāc ō-mo-p tz-ø Once it has been cast 50 in çaço tlein cozcatl oiecauh: in izquitlamantli nican omoteneuh, in zāzo tlein cōzca-tl ō-yēcauh-ø in izqui-tlaman-tli nicān ō-mo-tēnēuh-ø, —whichever ornament was finished, of each of the things mentioned here—, niman ic mopetlaoa ica texalli. niman c mo-petlāhua ca te-xāl-li then it is burnished with sandstone. Auh in omopetlauh: ie no cuele motlalxocohuia, Auh in ō-mo-petlāuh-ø ye nō cuēleh mo-tlāl-xoco-huia Once it has been burnished, right away it is treated with “sour earth” [alum];51 moteci in tlalxocotl, mo-teci in tlāl-xoco-tl the sour earth is ground; ic maaltia, ic momamatiloa in teucuitlatl in omopitz: c m(o)-ā-āltia c mo-ma-matiloa in teō-cuitla-tl in ō-mo-p tz-ø with it, the sun-excrement that was cast is bathed, is anointed. oppa in tleco calaqui, ipan mototonia: ōm-pa in tle-co cal-aqui, -pan mo-to-tōnia Twice it enters the fire, in which it is heated. Auh in ohoalquiz, occeppa ie no cuele Auh in ō-huāl-quiz-ø, oc-cē-pa ye nō cuēleh Once it has come out, yet another time, once again Blowers of Sun-Excrement 227 ic maaltia, ic momamatiloa itoca teucuitlapatli: c m(o)-ā-āltia, c mo-ma-matiloa toca teō-cuitla-pah-tli it is bathed, anointed with what is called “sun-excrement medicine,” çan no iuhquin tlalcoztli moneloa achiton iztatl zan nō iuhquin tlāl-cōz-tli mo-neloa achih-tōn izta-tl which is simply yellow earth,52 mixed with a little salt. ic mocencahoa ic cenca coztic mochioa in teucuitlatl: c mo-cen-cāhua c cencah coz-ti-c mo-ch hua in teō-cuitla-tl With it the sun-excrement is finished, is made very yellow. auh çatepan ic mopetlaoa motecpauia, ic uel mocencaoa, auh zātēpan c mo-petlāhua mo-tēcpah-huia, c huel mo-cen-cāhua, Ultimately, the reason it is burnished, the birdlime applied to it, 53 the reason it is well prepared, inic iequine uellanestia, pepetlaca, motonameiotia in c yēqueneh huel-(t)lanēx-tia, pe-petla-ca, mo-tōna-mēyo-tia is so that in the end it is fully luminous, sparkles, shines out rays of light.54 Allison Caplan Allison Caplan is assistant professor in the department of history of art and architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. My deepest thanks to Felipe Rojas Silva and Claudia Brittenham for their thoughtful discussions of this passage in our Nahuatl working group (2020–21). Many thanks also to them, Jennifer Stager, and Louise Burkhart for their insightful comments on a draft of this article. 1 Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, ed. and trans. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, 1st ed., introductory volume (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research; Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1950–83), 11, 54–55; Miguel León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún: First Anthropologist, trans. Mauricio Mixco (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 115–16, 132–33, 213. 2 These are MS 3280 of the Biblioteca del Real Palacio and MS 9-5524 of the Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, known collectively as the Códices matritenses. The Manuscrito de Tlatelolco is comprised of three documents: the Segundos memoriales (1561–62), Memoriales en tres columnas (1563–65), and Memoriales con escolios (ca. 1565). The Florentine Codex (1575–77, MS 218-220, Col. Palatina) is held in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, 9–23; Howard Cline, “Evolution of Historia general,” in Handbook of Middle American Indians, ed. Robert Wauchope, Howard Cline, and John Glass (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973), 13:189–203; and Kevin Terraciano, “Introduction: An Encyclopedia of Nahua Culture; Context and Content,” in The Florentine Codex: An Encyclopedia of the Nahua World in Sixteenth-Century Mexico, eds. Jeanette Favrot Peterson and Kevin Terraciano (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019), 1–18. 3 The text appears on folios 50r–52r of book 9 of the Florentine Codex and folios 44v–45r of the Manuscrito de Tlatelolco, in the component known as the Memoriales en tres columnas. 4 For images of all folios, see the World Digital Library, https://www.wdl.org/es/item/10620/. 5 The traditional process appears on folios 50r–52r and in the first thirteen images, whereas the colonial process appears on 52r–54r and in the final eleven images. These correspond to Sahagún, Florentine Codex, bk. 9:73–75 and 75–78. 6 Michael Clarke, “Lost-Wax Casting,” in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 146–47; Alice Apley, “African Lost-Wax Casting,” in Heilbrunn Timeline 228 West 86th V 28 N2 of Art History (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wax /hd_wax.htm. 7 Dorothy Hosler, “Ancient West Mexican Metallurgy: South and Central American Origins and West Mexican Transformations,” American Anthropologist 90 (1988): 832–55; José Luis Ruvalcaba Sil, Gabriela Peñuelas Guerrero, Jannen Contreras Vargas, Edith Ortiz Díaz, and Eumelia Hernández Vázquez, “Technological and Material Features of the Gold Work of Mesoamerica,” ArchéoSciences 33 (2009): 290. 8 Dorothy Hosler, The Sounds and Colors of Power: The Sacred Metallurgical Technology of Ancient West Mexico (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), 226–51; and Allison Caplan, “So It Blossoms, so It Shines: Precious Feathers and Gold in Pre- and Post-Conquest Nahua Aesthetics” (master’s thesis, Tulane University, 2014), 30–33. 9 Because of its geographic spread, metallurgy shares many traits across Mesoamerica, and distinguishing work by different culture groups has long posed a problem. See Leonardo López Luján and José Luis Ruvalcaba Sil, “El oro de Tenochtitlan: La colección arqueológica del Proyecto Templo Mayor,” Estudios de cultura náhuatl 49 (2015): 7–57; and Óscar Moisés Torres Montúfar, Los señores del oro: Producción, circulación y consumo de oro entre los mexicas (Mexico City: INAH, 2015). 10 See Allison Caplan, Our Flickering Creations: Art Theory under the Aztec Empire (forthcoming). 11 Donald Robertson, Mexican Manuscript Painting of the Early Colonial Period: The Metropolitan Schools (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), 16–17. 12 Xipe Totec’s name is most likely reconstructed as x p-eh to-tē uc-ø, “our lord, possessor of a flayed skin [x ptli].” Many thanks to Louise Burkhart for this suggestion. The connection with textiles may also suggest intellectual ties to Andean gold-casting. See Heather Lechtman, “Technologies of Power: The Andean Case,” in Configurations of Power in Complex Society, ed. John Henderson and Patricia Netherly (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 244–80. 13 Miguel León-Portilla, La filosofía náhuatl estudiada en sus fuentes (1956; Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2017), 238–42. 14 Eduard Seler, L’orfèvrerie des anciens Mexicains et leur art de travailler la pierre et de faire des ornaments en plumes, Congrès international des Américanistes, 8th session (Paris: 1890), 401–52. 15 Marshall Saville, The Goldsmith’s Art in Ancient Mexico (New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1920), 125–41. The earliest Spanish translation was also done from Seler’s translation and appeared in Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, trans. Elisabeth Gott (Mexico City: Editorial Pedro Robredo, 1938), 5:197–200. The first direct translations into Spanish were Ángel María Garibay K., Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1956), 3:67–70; and Miguel León-Portilla, “Minería y metalurgia en el méxico antiguo,” in La minería en México (Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM, 1978), 27–28. 16 Indicatively, Lothrop commented, “The Sahagún text is none too clear, perhaps because of the multiple translations from Nahuatl to German to French to English, perhaps because Sahagún had not himself mastered the processes he describes.” Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, Metals from the Cenote of Sacrifice, Chichen Itza, Yucatan (Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1952), 19; Alfonso Caso, El tesoro de Monte Albán (Mexico City: INAH, 1969), 75–80; and Dudley Easby Jr., “Sahagún y los orfebres precolombinos de México,” Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 9 (1957): 85–117. 17 Sahagún, Florentine Codex, bk. 9:73–78. 18 Easby, “Sahagún y los orfebres,” 87; Dudley Easby Jr., “Aspectos técnicos de la orfebrería de la Tumba 7 de Monte Albán,” in El tesoro de Monte Albán, ed. Alfonso Caso (Mexico City: INAH, 1969), 343–94. 19 Numbers in square brackets indicate topical subsections. The main Nahuatl text is that which appears in the Florentine Codex. In places where the Florentine scribe introduced errors, I have inserted the correct form from the Manuscrito de Tlatelolco (MT) version in square brackets and footnoted the Florentine version. In a few places, the Florentine scribe seems to have intentionally altered the original text: there, I keep the Florentine version in the main text and footnote the divergent version in the MT. Except where it affects meaning, I do not indicate differences in spelling or orthography. While Anderson and Dibble also examined the Manuscrito de Tlatelolco, the vast majority of the discrepancies noted here do not appear in their publication. 20 In the MT, these lines instead begin the main text: “Nican moteneua yn iuhqui yc tlachichiua yn iehoant teocuitlapitzq’ yn tecultica, yoā xicocuitlatica tlatlalia . . . ” (“Here is told the manner in which they made things, the blowers of sun-excrement, who with charcoal and with bee-excrement compose . . . ”). 21 Gold and silver are commonly described as two colors of teōcuitlatl, rather than different metals. This naming practice may reflect the use of ternary alloys of gold, silver, and copper, such that gold and silver castings actually differed only in their relative percentage of each component metal. See López Luján and Ruvalcaba Sil, “El oro,” 7–57. 22 These terms are used canonically for grinding corn (teci) and re-grinding maize dough (cuēchoā). Stephanie Wood, ed., Online Nahuatl Dictionary, Wired Humanities Projects, 2000–2020, https: Blowers of Sun-Excrement 229 //nahuatl.uoregon.edu. 23 The Florentine scribe erroneously wrote “çozçoquitl.” 24 The Florentine scribe wrote “in.” 25 The Florentine scribe omitted the “in” and wrote the patientive noun “tlazoquitlalilli” (“a clay composition”). 26 The Florentine scribe changed the MT’s present-tense “quitlatlalia” to the past tense. 27 This complex statement describes the formed surface and inner life that the artist bestows on the charcoal carving. The phrase is formed around two terms, both based on the causative verb pēhuāltiā, “to start something.” When it appears with an incorporated noun, the verb means that the noun is initiated for someone or something, for example, tēmpēhuāltiā, “to incite someone to speak” (literally “he/she lip-starts someone,” from tēn(tli), lips), and tzinpēhuāltiā, “to begin something from scratch” (literally “he/she base-starts something,” from tzin(tli), rump). Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983), 224, 313. In this passage, the incorporated nouns are x-nen, a compound of x(tli), “face, eyes, surface,” and nen(tli), “living thing” (from nemi, “to live”); and yōl-cā, the preterit agentive (in its combining form) of yōli, “to be alive.” These two incorporated nouns simultaneously denote two types of living agents and two major Nahua body parts: the first uses its x(tli) (face) to perform the act of nemi, to live, reside, or exist, whereas the second performs the act of yōli, to come to life, hatch, or revive, an action associated with the yōllōtl (heart). These major terms all appear in Nahua philosophical discourse as rhetorical couplets, or difrasismos, that refer in the first case to life and sustenance (nencā, yōlcā), and in the second to personhood and identity (in xtli, in yōllōtl). The nen- root in this line should not be confused with nēn (“in vain”), which appears in Molina’s entry for the homophonous ixnempeualtia, “trauar renzillas con otro sin causa” (“to quarrel without reason”). Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario de la lengua mexicana, part 2, ed. Julio Platzmann (1571; Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1880), 46r. 28 Both terms are applicative verbs, formed from x(tli), “face, eyes, surface” and yōl(li), “heart” (see note 27). Applicative verbs can be translated either as “to provide” or “to apply” and could refer either to the artwork being provided with a face and heart, or to the artists applying their own face and heart in their work. Given the terms’ repetition from above, the former seems more likely. 29 This can also be translated, “whatever it will become,” depending on whether the verb is taken as a passive or reflexive. 30 These lines refer to body modifications typical among Huastec (Teenek) people of the Gulf Coast, including “ jar-handle”-style nose piercings and arrow-shaped facial scarifications (see fig. 2). Tohueyo (“kinsmen”) is a common Nahuatl denominator for Huastecs. The term appears in Molina as “aduenidizo, o estrangero” (“person from a distant land, or foreigner”) and in the Florentine Codex with the gloss, “quitoznequi tohuampo” (“it means our neighbor”). Molina, Vocabulario, 151r; Sahagún, Florentine Codex, bk. 10:185. My thanks to Kim Richter (personal communication, July 2018) for the second reference. 31 The Florentine scribe changed the MT’s present-tense line to the past tense. 32 The MT uses the illuminating spelling, “motlayehyecalhuia.” The Florentine word is transcribed incorrectly in Anderson and Dibble (bk. 9:73) as “motlaehecalhuia.” The term appears in Molina as “yeyecalhuia. nitetla. contrahazer o arrendar a otro, o amagar con algo” (“counterfeit, or imitate someone, or make the gesture of doing something”). Molina, Vocabulario, 35r. The verb can be reconstructed as the reduplicated applicative of yēcoā, “to finish, conclude something,” creating the sense of trying to do something (yehyēcoā) in relation to someone or something (-lhuia). See Karttunen, Analytical, 337, who also notes the potential confusion with yecoā, “to sample food or drink.” 33 The Florentine scribe inserted an extraneous “c” in “mihuiiotica.” 34 Alternately, “what it will become” (see note 29). 35 “Anoço chacalin” (“If a large shrimp”) was omitted from the Florentine version. 36 The Florentine scribe changed to present tense the MT’s past-tense “mochiuh” (“was made”). 37 The Florentine Codex omits “yc.” 38 The Florentine Codex has “texixipeztic” (“stone-smoothed”). 39 See note 22 about associations of these grinding actions with maize. 40 The Florentine scribe erroneously wrote “auh.” 41 The MT scribe added, “çan no teculli yn tlanelolli tlaltzacutli” (“which is just charcoal, mixed with stick clay”). These words were then struck through, apparently because they repeat the clause just below. This phrase was omitted from the Florentine copy. 42 Cop na (“to detach”) refers to copying by lifting a surface off of its body, or vice versa, as suggested by Molina’s definition: “sacar vna cosa de otra, o por otra, o sacar algo con molde, assi como adobes, o vasos” (“to take one thing out of another, or remove something from a mold, such as adobes or cups”). Molina, Vocabulario, 24v. In this and the following sentence, cop na describes the act of copying that occurs by detaching the cast gold surface from its inner, forming charcoal mold. The Florentine scribe interpreted the sentence to end at “mocentlapachoa” and inserted a period and capitalized the following word, “In.” The MT instead has a period here, after “teocuitlatl.” The lines’ syntax suggests that the MT version is correct. 43 The Florentine Codex lists tlāltzauctli under earths used in pottery and describes it as “çaçalic, 230 West 86th V 28 N2 tzauctic, tlaçalolonj” (“sticky, gluey, glue”). Sahagún, Florentine Codex, bk. 11:258. It also appears in Molina as “greda, o yesso.” Molina, Vocabulario, 124v. 44 The presence of the nonspecific object prefix (tla-) in tlacop nalōni means that it must be taken as the instrumental (“detaching instrument”), in contrast with cop nalōni, “something detachable.” James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 90. 45 This term alternately is spelled “amilotl” (51v) or “amillotl” (53v) in the Florentine Codex and “anillotl” in the MT (44v–45v). The Nahuatl text presents this as a specialized term denoting a channel through which molten gold flows from the crucible into the mold. This term does not appear in any period dictionaries, and Anderson and Dibble suggest it is from the Spanish anillo, ring (bk. 9:75n10), although this seems unlikely. Ām llōtl may derive instead from ām lli, irrigated field, and the abstractive suffix, -yō, which frequently denotes an essential component of the noun stem; see Lockhart, Nahuatl, 69. I hypothesize that ām llōtl (ām l-yō-tl) refers to the essential means by which fields are irrigated, namely, liquid-bearing canals. 46 The MT here adds “yoā” (“and”). 47 This specialized term refers to a crucible that contains the gold. Molina defines it, “Tlacaxxotl. cresol para derretir metal, o cosa semejante” (“Tlacaxxotl. a crucible for melting metal, or something similar.”) Molina, Vocabulario, 116r. 48 This assemblage is pictured in folio 51v’s second image: a crucible, full of molten gold, is attached at left to the tube-like “canal,” which in turn connects to the rock-like matrix that contains the wax model. 49 The Florentine scribe wrote “ic” (“whereby”). 50 In the MT, this line begins a new subsection. 51 Clavigero writes, “After grinding and dissolving the aluminous earth in water, which they called Tlalxocotl, they boiled it in earthen vessels; then by distillation, they extracted the allum pure, white, and transparent, and before they hardened it entirely, they parted it in pieces to sell it in the market.” Francesco Saverio Clavigero, The History of Mexico, trans. Charles Cullen (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1817), 2:221. 52 Tlālcōztli is described among the earths used in pottery as, “tlacoçalhujlonj, tlaoçalonj” (“something that turns things yellow, an ointment”). Sahagún, Florentine Codex, bk. 11:257. 53 Tēcpahhuia likely refers to tēcpahtli (from tēctli, rattlesnake, and pahtli, medicine), an acidic, flowering plant with a thick tuber that was used as birdlime and medicinally, described in Sahagún, Florentine Codex, bk. 11:133. Another, less likely reading is tecpatl, flint knife. My thanks to Felipe Rojas Silva for suggesting the former reading. 54 On this usage of c and in c, see Lockhart, Nahuatl, 94. Blowers of Sun-Excrement 231