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 N o t e s o n M i d d l e A m e r i c a n A r c h a e o l o g y a n d E t h n o l o g y Carnegie Institution of Washington Division of Historical Research No. 10 December 20, 1942 the Payment of tribute in the Codex Mendoza R.C.E. Long Wood 31v–32r Baskets of white copal, bowls of unrefined copal 35v–36r Baskets of white copal, balls of copal for refining 36v–37r Stout canes (otlatl), canes from which they make spears (tlacochitl), deerskins, smoking canes (acayetl), and crates for carrying burdens (cacaxtla) 41v–42r The following articles are quarterly in these same folios but half yearly in others: Quarterly Half Yearly Pots of bees’ honey 35v–36r 36v–37r 39v–40r Gourds (xicaras) 35v–36r 36v–37r 22v–23r 24r–25r Axe blades 36v–37r 39v–40r Loads of lime 41v–42r 27v–28r None of these appear as yearly taxes and they are the only items that are both quarterly and half yearly. A number of articles are half yearly only and never quarterly or yearly: mantles, huipils, loincloths , paper, rush mats (petates), rush seats with backs, maguey honey, salt, red cacao, red sea shells, gourds (tecomates), earthen pans of yellow powder (tecozahuitl), copper bells, cakes of liquidambar. In the part of Codex Mendoza containing the tribute roll each pair of pages (the verso and recto of sequent folios) lists the towns and a tally of tribute paid.Apparently each pair relates to a single taxation district, comprising all the towns in it, and the tribute enumerated was paid by the district as a whole. Major James Cooper Clark, in his [1938] edition of the codex, evidently takes this view as he gives a useful summary of the entire yearly tribute, showing how much of each kind of article was contributed. With the exception of folios 18v[19]–19 and 46v– 47r, which will be considered farther on, there is no indication in the picture writing of how often in the year various tributes were payable, which seems a strange omission. The Spanish interpretation, however , states for each item how often it was payable. There were three classes of payment: yearly, half yearly, and quarterly. In the interpretation the quarterly payments are said to be made every eighty days, but Cooper Clark shows that these were paid on four festivals of the Aztec year, which was as near to a quarterly payment as could be made in a year of eighteen months and five days. Now an examination of the lists shows that with the exception noted above, the folios follow a rule from which there were very few deviations. There are only four pairs of pages that have any quarterly items, namely, folios 31v–32r, 35v–36r, 36v– 37r, and 41v–42r. In these, the following commodities are paid only quarterly and do not appear elsewhere as half yearly or yearly payments: The Payment of Tribute in the Codex Mendoza  Bales of cotton constitute the only item which appears as both a half yearly (ff. 37v–38r) and a yearly (ff. 47v–48r, 52v[53]–53, 53v[54]–54) tax. All the items not included in these lists are yearly and are never quarterly or half yearly. Having finished what we may call the normal folios, we now come to the two pairs excepted above. The first of these, folios 18v[19]–19, is unusual in another way in that it lists only one tribute-paying town, Tlatelolco. It contains an obligation to repair a temple, which is a yearly item and is not found elsewhere; and it also has, like most of the folios, an item of suits of armor and shields which here are yearly items as in all other folios. But all, the other items in this set of folios are quarterly. Two of then, the baskets of maize flour and cacao and the baskets of maize flour and sage, are not found elsewhere; a third, the mantles, are elsewhere half yearly. It is noteworthy that theAztec painter marked this difference from the usual practice by repeating the glyph for day (iluitl) four times. But iluitl, besides meaning simply day, is used with the implication of festival day, i.e. one of the eighteen monthly festivals. It is therefore properly interpreted in the Spanish text as twenty days, and, as there are four glyphs...

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