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Codex Chapman

Toloatzin

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Healing, Cleansing, and Healers The Florentine Codex provides vivid depictions of Nahua healing practices, illustrating the use of medicinal herbs, hygienic and ritual bathing, and the roles of healers within the community. The Nahua embraced a holistic approach to health and healing that encompassed preventive measures, dietary practices, cleansing customs, and therapeutic treatments, among others. Ritualized cleansing ceremonies, including steam baths in temazcalli, held spiritual significance, serving as both physical and spiritual purification rites. The traditional healing knowledge of tiçiyotl was transmitted to humanity by the primordial couple Oxomoco and Cipactonal, and lives through healers known as ticitl. These healers drew upon this ancestral wisdom and acquired skills through transformative experiences, having varied specializations to cure the body and heart/soul. Through a combination of traditional knowledge of the natural world, spiritual beliefs, and practical techniques, the Nahua cultivated a comprehensive approach to health that continues to resonate with contemporary understandings of holistic medicine.
Traditional Healing Knowledge
The Florentine Codex tells us of an ancient woman named Oxomoco and a man named Cipactonal, who mastered astrology and the healing knowledge known as tiçiyotl. This couple was said to have passed on the practice of tiçiyotl to humans, who continue to guard their healing knowledge and traditions. According to Book 10 of the Florentine Codex, these first healers had vast skills in recognizing herbs, discovering and using precious stones, and inventing the art of medicine (García Garagarza 2023). As typically depicted in other codices, this image of the primordial couple shows them casting corn and beans and holding healing tools, engaging with the Nahua ritual calendar (Polanco 2022). We see Oxomoco with an ear ornament, sporting the axtlacuilli hairstyle and holding a cord, while Cipactonal is portrayed with a labret and loincloth. Oxomoco and Cipactonal were experts in reading “day signs” and interpreting them, a specialization of healing known as tonalpouhque. Thus, the couple were also known as the “lords of all the day count” (Anderson & Dibble 1953–1982).

Nahua Cleansing Customs
For the Nahua people, disease prevention was as important, or more important, than curing an illness itself. The significance they gave to health started with their salubrious and varied diet. The diversity of their aliments, a high fiber, low cholesterol diet, access to clean water, and regular exercise kept the Nahua in a sustainable, healthy state (Ortiz de Montellano). In addition, they practiced daily cleaning for hygienic and ritual purposes, an unconventional concept for the Spaniards. The Nahua would wash their hands and mouths before and after eating, as well as wash their feet as soon as they came back home. In fact, this practice was so ingrained in their lifestyle that many Nahautl metaphors are based on cleaning references (Madajczak 2023).

Exceptions to Cleansing
Nahua culture deemed bathing as a transformative tool with the power to change the “divine” status of an individual. For this reason, there were groups within Nahua society that were exempt from daily cleaning practices. These included mourning families, priests, and travelers such as merchants, for instance. Avoiding soap, water, and grooming was a tradition often associated with priests, also known as papahuaque, who aimed to resemble deities with their otherworldly looks. The lack of hygiene would open the door to the supernatural, and thus, by becoming dirty, individuals tried to prevent dangerous forces in their lives and the lives of their loved ones (Madajczak 2023). Families that were left at home by merchants would only wash their hair every eight days until their traveling relative returned, as the traveler was not to wash. For mourning women, the crust of dirt from their cheeks was collected and offered as “the relics of the tears” in temples. Thus, through a deliberate lack of cleaning, families would ensure their loved ones returned safely, or found rest if deceased (Madajczak 2023).

In Book 2, fol. 26v of the Florentine Codex, the image titled “Tlacaxipehualiztli”, the name of the second month during which ceremonies and sacrifices were performed, depicts women washing their hair after their relatives’ return. Two men hold water vessels over two kneeling women as they presumably pour water and aid them in removing the filth from their heads. According to researcher Julia Madajczak, this takes place after the tototectin relatives come back to their human form. Tototectin, also known as totec, were “skin-wearers,” those who wore the skins of the sacrificed previous representatives of the god Xipec Totec. While impersonating the god, bathing or washing hair was not allowed. Besides washing their hair, in order to return to their human condition, tototectin would clean their faces with a mixture of corn flour and water, as they believed “humanness” was contained in the corn from which bodies were created. After the conclusion of the festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli and washing, the return to their human state would end with a final offering of the skin for the new Xipe impersonator, called tetzompacqui, or “he who washes one’s hair” (Madajczak 2023).

Temazcalli
The Nahua were fond of bathing, having various forms and traditions to do so. Besides bathing in natural bodies of water, steam baths taking place in constructions known as temazcalli were particularly significant. Elite individuals would attend steam baths regularly, accompanied by their servants to carry out the practices. Temazcalli were typically built as extensions of houses, with almost every home in Tenochtitlan having a bathhouse (Keoke & Porterfield 2002). A fire would be lit inside this small circular structure to heat rocks that would then be sprinkled with water to create steam. These rooms were the first step to healing, attended before physicians prescribed any treatments or medication. It was typical for women to use the temazcalli after giving birth and for babies to be cleansed in a ritual bath immediately after being born, a tradition that is still practiced today across Mexico (Keoke & Porterfield 2002). Besides regular cleaning, steam baths would flush out toxins and be used to treat joint problems, coughs, and fevers (Verano & Ubelaker 1991).

This image of a temazcalli is found in Book 10, fol. 113v, and is titled “Healing with pahtli and temazcalli after being lashed.” As the name suggests, the men depicted here are standing outside a temazcalli, featuring the structure with an entrance, adobe bricks, fire, and a smoke aperture. The man to the right is holding what appears to be corn leaves, suggesting the whipping of the body of the man standing in the middle, who has lash marks and is presumably the master or person being healed. As it was a common practice to be whipped with corn leaves before a bath, it is unclear whether the man in the middle has lash marks on purpose or if he is recovering from stab wounds, the procedure described in the previous folio. The man sitting on the ground is holding a bowl with pahtli, the term for herbs with medicinal value. Based on the Nahuatl text from the previous page, this pahtli could be pozahualizpatli, a poultice composed of various herbs. This would be applied to the body after it had been lashed and the flesh was covered by welts. Afterward, the patient would take a sweat bath in the temazcalli and then drink an infusion, in this case consisting of the root iztacpatli, chile, and the native white wine to circulate and cure the blood (Anderson & Dibble 1953–1982). It is possible that the two men on the left and right are servants to the man in the middle, or perhaps they are ticitl.

Healers: Ticitl and Specializations
Ticitl, also spelled tiçitl and plural titiçih, is the general name given to healers with diverse specializations who practice tiçiyotl. Sometimes, those who cured others were also referred to as tepahtiani, a word with the root pahtia, which means “to heal”. A ticitl could be a healer, physician, midwife, or prognosticator. The Nahuatl text in Book 10 fol. 20r describes a good ticitl as “a curer of people, a restorer, a provider of health… a diagnostician, experienced– a knower of herbs, of stones, of trees, of roots… He provides health, restores people, provides them splints, sets bones for them, purges them, gives emetics, gives them potions; he lances, he makes incisions in them, stitches them, revives them, envelopes them in ashes.” (Anderson & Dibble 1953–1982) In folio 38r, another description of a ticitl repeats much of the same information about the role of the physician, only this time using “she” pronouns. According to the writings of Dr. Francisco Hernández from central Mexico, 1571–1615, "...men and women alike practice medicine and are called Ticiti . . . There are no surgeons or pharmacists among the titici, but rather only physicians, who by themselves dispense all manners of treatment." (Varey 2000). Therefore, this was not a gendered practice, although certain differences may be noted in specializations (e.g. midwives) and the perception and treatment received from the Spaniards.

According to Dr. Edward A. Polanco, much of the healing knowledge and practice of the ticitl was passed on by their parents and grandparents. However, he notes that to become a healer, most titiçih had a life-changing or near-death experience that encouraged this path for them. Typically, during this transformative event, “a non-human life force or a deceased loved one would visit the future healer to teach them how to heal and give them the tools and items necessary to cure. This included things like needles to prick, gourds to interpret water, and plants to apply to the sick.” (Polanco 2022). Thus, the journey to becoming a ticitl was both a generational and foreordained occupation.

In addition to gourds and needles, a ticitl would also use entheogenic plants and seeds as tools to determine an illness and its procedure. Known to have psychoactive substances, entheogenic plants are those that “release the God within”, which when ingested would allow the healer to communicate with a life force that came from the plant (Polanco 2022). These plants, such as peyotl and ololiuhqui, would provide information to the ticitl on the nature of the illness, aiding in the healing process. The interpretation of things, known as tlapohualiztli, was a specialization that a ticitl could have, then functioning as a tlapouhqui. These healers would comprehend, diagnose, and prognosticate an illness using tools such as gazing in water, measuring one’s forearm length, and casting corn and beans, among others (Polanco 2022). Other ticitl specializations included teixtomani and teixcuiltian, who focused on transforming the heart and returning tonalli to those who had lost it (Landa Durán 2009).

Works Cited
Landa Durán, Patricia. 2009. “Las Enfermedades Mentales Son Enfermedades Del Corazón.” Www.mexicolore.co.uk. April 3, 2009. https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/health/las-enfermedades-mentales-son-enfermedades-del-corazon.
Madajczak, Julia. 2023. “The Amazing Properties of Nahua Baths.” Www.mexicolore.co.uk. January 4, 2023. https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/health/amazing-properties-of-nahua-baths.
Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard. 2019. “Introduction to Aztec Health.” Mexicolore.co.uk. 2019. https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/health/.
Polanco, Edward A. 2022. “Healing among Nahua Communities.” Www.mexicolore.co.uk. May 31, 2022. https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/health/healing-among-nahua-communities.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. n.d. “Digital Florentine Codex.” Florentinecodex.getty.edu. Getty Research Institute. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/.
“Ticitl. | Nahuatl Dictionary.” n.d. Nahuatl.wired-Humanities.org. Accessed May 6, 2024. https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ticitl.
Varey, Simon. 2000. The Mexican Treasury: The Writings of Dr. Francisco Hernández. Stanford University Press. Stanford: Stanford University Press. http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=696.
Verano, John W., and Douglas H. Ubelaker. 1991. “Health Profiles: Aztec Warrior v Spanish Conquistador.” Www.mexicolore.co.uk. 1991. https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/health/health-profiles-aztec-warrior-v-spanish-conquistador.