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Aztec Beauty
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Featured November 6 , 2006
The Aztec concepts of physical beauty - cosmetics and cleanliness
The Aztec world contained many often startling contradictions exemplified in their daily lives, one of which being that this warrior nation’s propensity for bloodletting was offset by a deep-seated reverence of beauty—an abstract concept which in Nahuatl is conveyed by the combination of the words for “jade” and “feathers.”
This love of beauty extended to nature and to the arts and extended deeply into the social and cultural codes of this complex and contradictory society. Considering themselves inherently superior to their neighbours, the Aztecs had strict standards regarding the demeanor and appearance of the ideal man and woman which managed to combine tastefulness with moderation. While gaudy cosmetics and tattooing were common in other cities, the women of Tenochtitlan generally disdained such artifices of nature. One of the Chronicles contains the following instruction of a father to his daughter, which may be taken as a stricture upon how a decent woman was expected to appear (and may be familiar to the daughters of disapproving fathers across all times and places!) 'Listen to me, child. Never make up your face nor paint it; never put red on your mouth to look beautiful. Makeup and paint are things that light women use - shameless creatures. If you want your husband to love you, dress well, wash yourself and wash your clothes.' However, while it seems most Aztec women weren’t expected to wear cosmetics, this disapproval evidently didn’t apply to the auianime—a class of concubines who attended the warriors, and Friar Sahagun has left us a description of the appearance of these women: Their faces were painted with dry, colored powder; faces were colored with yellow ochre, or with bitumen. Feet were anointed with unguent of burned copal incense and dye. . . . Some cut their hair short, so that their hair reached their noses. It was cut and dyed with black mud - so did they place importance upon their heads; it was dyed with indigo, so that their hair shone. The teeth stained with cochineal; the hands and neck were painted with designs. With the exception of those concubines who cut their hair short, most younger women let their hair grow straight and long, sometimes down to the waist. Normally it was allowed to hang loose, but on festival days it was braided with ribbons. A more elaborate coiffure, typically worn by mature, married Aztec women, was created by winding the hair into two plaits round the head with the ends projecting in two horn-like tufts above the eyebrows. And what about the Aztec men? Sahagun describes the physical ideal for an Aztec youth as “slender like a reed; long and thin like a stout cane; well-built; not of overfed body, not corpulent, and neither very small nor exceedingly tall. ” On ceremonial occasions men would paint their faces and bodies, although it isn’t known if they followed the example of some of the neighboring tribes who covered their arms and chests with tattooed designs. Men usually allowed their hair to grow to the level of the nape of the neck, but the warriors are often depicted with various kinds of scalp-locks and priests too had their own distinctive hair style. Hair on the face was considered unpleasant, Aztec mothers applied hot cloths to the faces of their young sons in order to stifle the hair follicles and what facial hair did grow was plucked out with tweezers. In stark contrast to their European conquerors, for whom bathing was an enervating experience to be undertaken as infrequently as possible, and for whom perfume served to disguise the resulting odour, personal cleanliness was as highly valued among the Aztecs as it was among the Egyptians. Andres de Tapia comments (with some astonishment!) that Montezuma washed his body twice a day, but even ordinary Aztecs would bathe frequently in the rivers and lakes, using the fruit of the soap-tree and the roots of certain plants which could produce a lather as a “soap”. A kind of sauna or steam bath was also in use everywhere in the Valley of Mexico, which was used by both men and women not only for ritual purifications and the treatment of certain diseases, but as a normal part of everyday hygiene. Pleasant scents were also regarded as desirable. Women would wear garlands of fragrant flowers around their necks and perfumes such as rose water were popular. The breath was sweetened with as a kind of chewing gum made of chicle mixed with axin and bitumen. The physical and social ideals of the Aztec world reveal the deep stoicism combined with celebration of beauty that pervades every aspect of this warrior people. Contradictory, yes, but what else could one expect of a nation who could routinely perform gruesome rites of human sacrifice yet still compose poetry (“flower-songs”) that sighs over the transitory illusion of life? |
Ameyalli
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