Posts Tagged: octli

Pulque and the four hundred divine yet helplessly drunken rabbits

6 May 2020

Not overly strong alcoholic beverages were certainly a part of pre-contact Mesoamerica and had their undeniable presence in people’s lives. In Central Mexico it was a fermented sap of agave/maguey plant that provided local populations with a slightly bitter-tasting and not overly strong, milky beverage... Read More

Nahuatl that we speak every day

27 January 2020

In the previous article on Nahuatl and its dominance over huge chunks of Mexico and Central America, we looked into its growing outreach through the last two centuries of the pre-contact times and then its surprisingly even greater reach in the first two centuries of... Read More

Sold into slavery? Not the end of the world

21 July 2013

Living in a beautiful, rich and well regulated altepetl (city-sate) of the Mexican Valley might have been a pleasant experience unless you and your family were extremely poor. To be a pipiltin, a noble, was good. Whether residing next to the imposing cultural center, among... Read More