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The Emperors’ Cloak: Aztec Pomp, Toltec Circumstances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Patricia Rieff Anawalt
Patricia Rieff Anawalt*
Affiliation:
Center for the Study of Regional Dress, Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024
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Abstract

The official cape of the Aztec emperors characteristically is pictured with a blue, geometric design. A pictorial codex illustrates tribute textiles incorporating a portion of that same pattern. These sixteenth-century Aztec weavings came from geographic areas previously part of the twelfth-century Toltec empire; it is from that revered power that this motif derived. The imperial blue cloak of the Aztec rulers thus served as their “charter,” reflecting the empire's legitimacy based on the emperors’ claim to a Toltec genealogy. The design’s Nahuatl name plus recent dyeing experiments indicate the creation of the emperors’ cloak involved the deliberate inclusion of a labor-intensive tie-dye technique in order to produce a specific motif that carried a powerful symbolism. This design’s occurrence in other contexts confirms its importance and indicates the motif had pre-Toltec origins relating to geopolitical/mythological bases of authority in ancient mesoamerican societies.

Résumé

Résumé

La capa oficial de los emperadores Aztecas se caracteríza en sus representaciones por un diseño azul geométrico. Un códice pictoral enseña textiles de tributo que incorpora un porción de la misma decoración. Estos tejidos Aztecas del sigh XVI vienen de áreas geográficas que formaban parte del imperio Tolteca del sigh XII; tal poderío reverado es la fuente del diseño. La capa azul imperial de los gobernantes Aztecas servió entonces como una “cedula” que refleja la legitimidad del imperio basado en la relación geneólogo de los emperadores a los Toltecas. El nombre del diseño en Nahuatl e experimentos recién hechos de procesos de teñir indíca que el elaboración de la capa imperial incluye, a proposito, una técnica laborioso del tiñamento anudado (plangi) para producir el motivo especifko que contiene un simbolísmo poderoso. La ocurrencia de este diseóo en otros contenidos confirma su importancia e indica que el motivo tiene origenes pre-Toltecas con relación a bases geopolítico/mitológico de autoridad en sociedades del antiguo Mesoamerica.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , April 1990 , pp. 291 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1990

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