Avaliação: Cuerpo y alimento en el ritual: miradas comparativas entre Mesoamérica y el Área Andina – Chocolate ‘is so precious…the heart, the blood are to be feared.’

In Book 6 (Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy) of the Florentine Codex the 16th century Franciscan Friar and his co-authors equate cacao with both the heart and blood: “This saying was said of cacao, because it was precious…the heart, the blood are to be feared.” Cacao is also associated with Mesoamerican cosmic ideology. Consider the first page of the 16th-century Aztec pictorial manuscript the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer; the cacao tree sits in the southern direction, framed by the gods Centeotl and Mictlantecuthli. By comparing primary sources with visual materials, this paper will explore the more esoteric manifestations of cacao in Mesoamerican cultures and art.

• Alimento
• Cuerpo
• Ritual
• Mesoamerica