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Rebecca Maisto
Engagement Essay #1
10-24-15
RELS 6101
The Florentine Codex and Aztec Archaeology:
A Comparative Study of Gender Roles
As one begins a study of the role of gender in Aztec culture, they begin to see
remarkable patterns that are forced upon males and females from the beginning of their
lives- minutes after birth. In this study Judith Butlers Seduction, Gender and the Drive
will be discussed in relation to Aztec gender roles. The concept of infantile sexuality will
be discussed within the gender roles enforced upon Aztec youth from the moment of
birth found in The Florentine Codex and throughout Aztec archaeology.
Ethnohistorical and archeological sources have shed light on the complex roles
gender played in Aztec society. Before archeological studies began there was an innate
bias in the existing written ethnohistorical accounts. Male Spaniards of the elite class
recorded the overwhelming majority of written accounts describing Aztec culture and
society. Even further, the information the Spaniards were recording was given to them
by privileged Aztec males. As a result there is a major exclusion in female gender roles
in written Aztec history. Instead of descriptions of real life and roles of Aztec females,
historians are left with recommendations, or prescriptions, of how Aztec women should
act (Evans and Webster, 290).
Major discrepancies are seen throughout written Aztec history. For example,
Bernardino de Sahagn recorded that Aztec women did not have the right to sell goods
in the expansive marketplace of Tenochtitlan in The Florentine Codex. But, in stark

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contradiction, The Florentine Codexs accompanying indigenous drawn imagery clearly
shows Aztec women selling goods in the market (Figure 1, Figure 2). Despite these
contradictions, The Florentine Codex is a bountiful source of ethnohistorical information
on Aztec life. Aztecs drew the images, and the written texts are in Spanish and Nahuatl,
the Aztec native language. As a result this codex demonstrates the inconsistencies in
Spanish interpretation and Aztec practice, but it is still an abundant source of
information on Aztec gender roles when used in assessment to archaeological finds.
Archaeology of Aztec sites is a fairly recent undertaking, with most projects
beginning in the mid twentieth century. The excavations at Tenochtitlan, now Mexico
City, and surrounding sites of the Aztec empire have given historians an unbiased view
of Aztec life through windows into domestic and ritual practice. The information
provided by archaeology has helped to overcome the androcentrism intrinsic to Western
culture and academia, as the artifacts and art have helped produce a nonprejudicial
vision of the Aztec past (Evans and Webster, 291).
In Butlers essay she argues that gender is repeatedly addressed and forced
upon people throughout their whole lives, an extension of Laplanches notion that
gender is forced on infants and precedes sexuality from birth. Butler summarizes
Laplanche stating, One is not born into the world and then happens upon a set of
gender options, but gender operates as part of the generalized discursive conditions
that are 'addressed' enigmatically and overwhelmingly to an infant and child (Butler,
128). For the Aztec infant this idea of imposed gender is seemingly more than accurate
when only viewing written sources like The Florentine Codex.

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The Florentine Codex shows the strict, binary world of gender in Aztec culture.
Gender identities are assigned to infants at birth. For example, the umbilical cords of
male infants were buried on a battlefield. And the umbilical cords of female infants were
buried near a household or under the household hearth. Bathing ceremonies occurred
the same day the infant was born and afterwards males were given motifs and tools of
their male identities: shields, bow and arrows, and a loincloth (Figure 3). Females were
given spinning and weaving instruments, as well as a tunic skirt and basket (Berdan,
199). The remarkable binaries of Aztec culture and society extend into every realm
including politics and religion, which were bound together as one entity.
A notable limitation the research of gender roles in Aztec society has illuminated
through reading Butlers essay is the vast absence of gendered names. The Nahuatl
practice for naming is quite different in comparison to Western practices. Instead of
basing a name on social rank or gender, Nahuatl names were often based on the date
the infant was born in the 260-day tonalamatl calendar. For example, Ome Quauhtli,
which translates to Two Eagle, and Macuilli Tochtli, meaning Five Rabbit (Berdan, 199).
Butler illustrates Laplanches view of gender as a social assignment by giving an
example of the name an infant is given before or after birth (Butler, 128). In Western
tradition names are clearly gendered as deemed by societal norms. For example, it is a
societal norm that Rebecca is a female name, and never a male name.
Butler poses the question of how gender as a social assignment works (Butler
128). After reading her interpretations and extensions of Laplanche my research on
Aztec gender has become more psychologically based. The Florentine Codex shows
male and female roles in society but does not show the psychological, hidden

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implications and meanings it had for Aztec men and women. The study of Aztec gender
roles has led to asking questions of rebellion and power. How did Aztec women and
men react to their enforced roles? Did they always conform, and if not how did they
demonstrate objection? In order to look into this notion of psychological effect of Aztec
gender norms, one must turn to archaeology.
The results of these new questions reveal a gendered society that was not
necessarily unassuming or passive. Turning to the archeology of gender in Aztec
society, recent excavations in Aztec cities show a breakdown and rebellion against the
gendered norms. Artifacts like spindle whorls have been found that have warrior shield
motifs, commonly suns, carved or painted on the surface (Figure 4). Spindle whorls
were also shaped like shields, as well as sacrificial stones known as temalacatl (Duran,
190). These objects were round platforms with large holes in the center where
imprisoned warriors were sacrificed.
Further, the Tizoc Stone (Figure 5) is thought to be a temalacatl. After a sacrifice
a pole was put through the hole of the Tizoc Stone with a serpent made of paper bound
to it, reminiscent of a spindle with fiber in its whorl (Sahagun, Book II, 147). Even more,
female weaving battens were used in ritual sacrifice, as substitutes for male weapons
like flint knives and spears. It has been suggested that these finds signify an effort by
Aztec females to challenge male power and convey a female gender distinctiveness of
complimentarity rather than binaries (Evans and Webster, 291).
Another example of a breakdown in the Aztec gender ideologies conveyed by
The Florentine Codex appears in the Aztec city of Cholula. Males have been found
buried with female signifiers like spindle whorls and spinning bowls (Evans and

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Webster, 291). The previously understood notion of binary gender identity in Aztec life
has become more complex with the introduction of Butlers essay. Without thinking of
gender as a social mechanism that must be constantly enacted upon males and
females alike, the question of rebellion against these mechanisms would not have arose
as easily. Finds like the unusual male burials and spindle whorls found in excavations
lead to questions of a rebellion and abnormality. Do the males buried with spindle
whorls truly represent a breakdown in the enforced gender ideologies, or are they
buried with these items because they were slaves that were not watched as closely?
In conclusion the results of this study on gender dynamics in Aztec culture and
society shows a remarkable pattern of gender complementarity. Although the Aztecs
did enforce strict gender roles from the beginning of ones life, shown in The Florentine
Codex, there is clear recoil against this binary structure on a psychological level. By
viewing The Florentine Codex alone we are given an impartial view to the Aztec past,
but once the account is accompanied with archeological finds like spindle whorls and
burials a complex, ever-changing view of gender is revealed. In sum the role of gender
in Aztec ritual, politics, and house hold dynamics is anything but binary. Returning to
the notions of gender as social assignment posed by Laplanche one can also see a
material and mental fight against the power structures of gender in Aztec society.

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Figures

Figure 1: Image from the Florentine Codex of Aztec women showing and selling their
goods in a market.

Figure 2: Image from the Florentine Codex of Aztec women showing and selling their
goods in a market.

Figure 3: Image from Florentine Codex showing a male infant bathing ceremony. The
shield, bow and arrows, and loincloth are seen surrounding the bathtub.

Figure 4: Spindle whorl (malacate) Mexico, unspecified origin. Notice the shape of the
whorl is the same as the Aztec male shield seen above in Figure 3, and similar to the
Tizoc stone seen below in Figure 5. The sun motif seen on this whorl was a common
motif that appeared on warrior shields and sacrificial monuments and tools.

Figure 5: Tizoc Stone

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Bibliography
Berdan, Frances. Aztec Archaeology and Ethnohistory. New York: Cambridge UP, 2014.
Print. Cambridge World Archaeology.
Butler, Judith. "Seduction, Gender and the Drive." Seductions and Enigmas: Laplanche,
Theory, Culture. Ed. John Fletcher and Nicholas Ray. N.p.: Lawrence & Wishart, 2014.
119-33. Print.
Duran, Diego. The Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar. Trans. F.
Horcasitas. Norman: U of Oklahoma, 1971. Print. Originally written 1576-79
Evans, Susan Toby, and David L. Webster. Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central
America: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub., 2001. Print.
Sahagun, Bernadino. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain.
Trans. A.J.D. Anderson and C.E. Dibble. Salt Lake City and Santa Fe: Uuniversity of
Utah and School of American Research, 1950-1982. Print. Originally written 1547-1585
comprised of 13 volumes