Page 542 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

He is recognized as the one
Who does as He wishes,
He determines, He amuses Himself.
As He wishes, so will it be.
In the palm of His hand
He has us.
At His will He shifts us around.
We shift around
like marbles we roll,
He rolls us around endlessly.
(Florentine Codex 1979, 2: book 6, fol. 43 v).

Tezcatlipoca and Yacatecuhtli (lord of the nose)
were the supreme dual counterparts among the
patron deities of the pochteca. The merchants
knew this fact well. Their book, not surprisingly,
recalls it again and again.
Some specialists have claimed the style of this
book is Mixtec, that is from the Oaxaca region.
Comparisons with several extant Mixtec codices
seem convincing on this point. Nevertheless the
contents of the book correspond to the beliefs and
practices of the people of central Mexico, espe-
cially to the pochteca from the Nahua region. It
may well be that the wealthy pochteca for whom
the book was created commissioned Mixtec
scribes and painters to produce it. The pochteca
were in frequent contact with the Mixtecs living
in what are today the regions of Puebla and
Oaxaca, and it would have been easy for them to
turn to Mixtec artists for such work.
The splendid book they produced, relating the
beliefs and wisdom of the pochteca, has in this
century become familiar to scholars through fac-
simile editions produced in England, Germany,
Austria, and Mexico. Not even the finest of these,
however, can convey the beauty of the original,
Several pages (35-40) include representations of such date is i Death (page 5), which was propi- which has survived almost unscathed the destruc-
gods to be worshipped and of ceremonies to be tious for them. On it they performed rituals hon- tion of the world that created it. M.L. -p.
performed in accordance with divine manifesta- oring Tezcatlipoca. Associated with a scene of a
tions, well known to the Nahua peoples of central dead body of a merchant who lost his life on the
Mexico in Aztec times. Among them, six are road is the day-sign \ Water (page 17), which the
especially important. They are Yacatecuhtli, lord Florentine Codex describes as particularly adverse
of the nose; Chalmecacihuatl, lady of Chalma; to the merchants.
Acxomoculi, an avatar of Tezcatlipoca; Nacxit, Many are the roads and crossroads depicted in
"four feet"; Cochimetl; and Yacapitzahua, associ- the book. They can be found in at least eleven
ated with Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. places in the codex; on one page (43) two cross-
These six deities were the much-revered patron roads are painted. In the upper one, several dates
gods of the pochteca. are indicated, which we know from the Nahuatl
On other pages (5-22) one sees, related to dif- texts of the Florentine Codex are those on which
ferent dates (days-destinies), series of numbers: the pochteca should choose to embark in order to
bars meaning fives and dots for units. One might ensure a propitious trading enterprise. The most
have guessed that these would indicate astro- advisable of these dates was Ce coatl, melahuac
nomical computations or perhaps something as ohtli (i Serpent, "straightway").
mundane as profits and losses in transactions. The last page of the book is devoted fully to
However, it is now known through accounts pro- Tezcatlipoca, the lord of everywhere and here also
vided in Nahuatl by pochteca in the sixteenth cen- of everywhen, as he appears surrounded by the
tury, after the fall of Aztec Mexico, that these twenty day-signs with twelve dots added to each
numbers, so carefully distributed, show how the sign. A complete tonalpohualli f the 26o-day
offerings to the gods were to be presented. count, thus encompasses "the smoking mirror,"
The book also refers to several dates that were the supreme Tezcatlipoca. He appears as well on
particularly meaningful to the merchants. One the first page and on several others of the codex.

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