Phil C. Weigand

19 Turquoise Formal Economic Interrelationships between Mesoamerica and the North American Southwest Phil C. Weigand No society in the history of humankind has valued the mineral turquoise more than the ancient Mesoamericans. Massive use of turquoise eventually supplanted jade as the most common and widespread gemstone within that ecumene. As a mineral with such a high profile, its acquisition and procurement, from initial mining to eventual use for prestigious artifacts, deserve much more systematic study and documentation than has been the case to date. What follows is a summary from the perspective of procurement and distribution between the southwestern United States and the rest of Mesoamerica farther south. TURQUOISE IN THE ANCIENT MESOAMERICAN WORLD As mentioned, no other mineral was valued as highly by the ancient Mesoameri- cans as turquoise. By the Postclassic period (beginning about A.D. 850–900), it was in common use throughout the entire macroregion. Previously, we estimated that between one and two million individual pieces of turquoise have been found in the southwestern United States and Mexico, including poorly provenienced materi- als extant in many museum and private collections (Weigand and Harbottle 1993; 343 Phil C. Weigand Harbottle and Weigand 1992; Weigand 1993). Several hundred thousand pieces of turquoise were found at Chaco Canyon alone. With new finds in Guerrero and Oaxaca (Sue Scott, personal communication, 2007), this estimate is probably con- servative but nonetheless in the general ballpark. Since the classic study by Pogue (1972), researchers have recognized a crucial fact: whereas the major centers of turquoise procurement were in the southwestern United States and the northernmost reaches of Mexico, the major centers of consumption were in western, central, and southern Mexico. Undeniably, this can mean only one thing: turquoise was an export item from the former areas to the latter ones. To examine this assertion and gain a better understanding of the role of turquoise in the economies of these two large regions, I consider three topics: (1) the demand for and high value of the mineral, (2) a geographic plot of the areas of demand and highest value versus the natural distribution of the mineral, and (3) the social structures that facilitated the flow of turquoise from its sources to the final points of major consumption. Demand and Value The first occurrences of turquoise in Mesoamerica are indeed quite early, although the mineral appears neither frequently nor in large quantities. During the Formative and Classic periods (ca. 2000 B.C. to A.D. 100, and A.D. 100 to 650/700, respectively), jade and malachite were far more popular and widespread. The best- attested early occurrences of turquoise come from the Mezcala region of Guerrero (Rosa María Reyna, personal communication, 2007) and Chalcatzingo in Morelos (Grove 1987). Both sites date to around 600 B.C. Vaillant (1930) reported a small number of turquoise pieces from Zacatenco in the central Valley of Mexico, dating to about 1800 B.C., although this material has never been sufficiently analyzed. At our ongoing excavations at Guachimontones, Jalisco,1 we have found five pieces of turquoise, although offerings from looted tombs sometimes number in the hundreds of pieces. All this material from western Mexico appears to date from the first century A.D. or slightly earlier. During the Classic period the distribution of turquoise broadens considerably, although it is still relatively rare. Reyna reports more material from Mezcala, dating about A.D. 600; Felipe Rodríguez (personal communication, 2007) reports turquoise from Quintana Roo in the Mayan area at about the same time. Our work in central Jalisco has located other small amounts from this period as well. For the period A.D. 500–900, Hers (1989) and Kelley (2002) report larger amounts of turquoise from sites of the Chalchihuites Tradition of northernmost Jalisco and southern and western Zacatecas. In this area, thousands of pieces of turquoise have been recovered through excavations at a number of different sites over the past three decades. By far, most of this material came from the status burials encountered at Alta Vista (Zacatecas). Aside from turquoise debris, most of the artifacts are tesserae. Interest- ingly, many of these mosaic blanks were cut into standardized sizes and display bev- 344 Turquoise eled edges, apparently the earliest appearance of turquoise with such characteristics in North America. It is important to note that turquoise was imported into these regions largely as uncut raw material. During the Epi- and Postclassic periods (A.D. 650/700–900 and 900–conquest, respectively), the distribution of turquoise witnessed a geometric increase in quan- tity and was found literally in every corner of western, central, and southern Meso- america. It was even for sale in the marketplace of Tlatelolco, the twin city of the Culhúa Mexica capital at Tenochtitlán. According to the Florentine and Mendoza codices, discussed later in more detail, turquoise figured as tribute from three prov- inces within the regions dominated by the Culhúa Mexica, even though none of the three had direct access to turquoise outcrops. Extremely elaborate masks, shields, inlaid jewelry, necklaces, hairpieces, bracelets, and other objects—made from turquoise tesserae, plaques, pendants, and beads—have been found in almost every new excavation in Jalisco, Michoacán, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, México, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Veracrúz, Chiapas, Campeche, Tabasco, and Yucatán. All of this material had to be imported. Sue Scott’s upcoming mono- graphs on turquoise artisanry will be important new contributions concerning the vast amount of new or newly rediscovered material (from forgotten collections) within Mesoamerica. In central Mexico, as elsewhere, turquoise was a marker of very high status and was utilized during important social occasions and ceremonies. The turquoise diadem, or crown, was the highest symbol of noble rank. Words of wisdom were analogically likened to turquoise; it was the mineral most befitting the gods, es- pecially those of the Quetzalcoatl set, and stood for general symbols of fertility in humans and of agriculture, rainfall, maize grains, the realm of the sky, and themes of renewal of all sorts. It is possible that set measures of turquoise, such as cotton mantas and cacao beans, served as special-purpose currencies. The penetration of turquoise, as a mineral, into the symbol sets and prestige structures of Mesoamerica was thorough. As mentioned, no other societies, before or after, have valued turquoise as much as those of ancient Mesoamerica. Thus it is a crucial commodity to investigate if we are to understand the social and symbolic world of what was once Mesoamerica. In what was to be a fatal gesture, Moctezuma II sent Hernán Cortéz a gift of an elaborate turquoise mosaic mask of Quetzalcoatl, along with other valuables including those of gold, prior to Cortez’s arrival in Tenochtitlán, the Culhúa Mex- ica capital. Well before that encounter, however, gifts of turquoise were routinely exchanged by noblemen and kings. From Sahagún’s Florentine Codex, written in the mid-1500s, comes this example: “And then the rulers of Anauac, Xicalanco, Cimatlán, and Coatzacualco [cities on the western fringe of the Mayan world] reciprocated [to the gift-bearing Culhúa Mexica pochteca] with large green stones, the well colored precious green stone which today we call the finest emerald-green jade . and turquoise mosaic shields” (Anderson and Dibble 1950–1982, Book 9:18–19). 345 Phil C. Weigand Given the fact that no turquoise deposits are found anywhere near this area, this passage is of much interest. The Maya and their immediate neighbors, like the rulers of Xicalanco, must have originally obtained their turquoise through trade from the north, only then to have worked it into elaborate artifacts they gave to the merchant representatives of the northern rulers. People of slightly lower status also had access to turquoise, as well as the obligation to give it as gifts to those of similar or higher ranks. The pochteca merchant class, which was not of noble status, was obliged to host numerous and elaborate ceremonial feasts, during which opulent gifts were given: “And the aged merchants received the people [high-status guests] with flowers, with tubes of tobacco, paper garlands, with turquoise mosaics, and fine maguey fiber plumage glistening with flecks of mica” (Anderson and Dibble 1950–1982, Book 9:38). When noblemen gave these elaborate feasts for one another, turquoise figured not only as an item to be given away but also as part of the dress of their “bathed” slave servants (those chosen to serve the noble guests): “He [the noble host] put on the heads of the bathed ones that [which] were know[n] as the anecuyotl . a turquoise device made [also] with feathers” and “He [the host] tied ‘shining hair strands’ about their temples, which were decorated in this way: alternating [strips of] turquoise [and] gold, reddish coral shells, [and] black [obsidian?] mirror stones” (Anderson and Dibble 1950–1982, Book 9:60). Even the higher-status artisans, such as the amanteca (feather workers), had the right to include turquoise as part of their ceremonial ornamentation: “Then he [a high-status amanteca] placed on his radiating ornament of turquoise, his feather staff, his shield, his rattles, and his foam sandals” (Anderson and Dibble 1950–1982, Book 9:84). These quotes are just a small sample of the large offering of historical sources concerning the status and ceremonial use of turquoise within Mesoamerica. Such references number in the hundreds. Clearly, the consumption and circulation of turquoise in the Mesoamerican world had become extremely complex in the course of just a few centuries. For the Culhúa Mexica, the entymology of the Nahuatl word for turquoise—teotlxiuitl, combining the suffix teotl, meaning “god” or “of god,” with the root xiuit, meaning turquoise as a mineral—attests to the esteem in which it was found (Anderson and Dibble 1950–1982, Book 11:223–224).

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