dark/light skin color differences in pre- and post-conquest Mexico

[micc2 at cox.net]

I read somewhere in my past life, that the priest were black because they would not clean off the sacred blood of the victims, and as the blood dried and caked, it turned black, and it also matted their hair into fantastic shapes, like snakes.


---- ptcamn <ptcamn at gmail.com> wrote: 
> Priests are often depicted in the codices with darkened skin,
> presumably due to some kind of paint. Compare the attached example
> from the Codex Magliabechiano.
> 
> Probably not relevant to the Florentine Codex image, but since you
> asked, darkness in some contexts was used to mark outsiders. One
> Mixtec name for the Nahuas was "tay saminuu", meaning "people with
> burnt faces", and they were so depicted in Mixtec codices. On the
> other hand, it is the Mixtecs who are depicted with dark skin as well
> as dark clothing in the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2. Finally, in
> present-day Isthmus Nahuatl, the word tilti' (corresponding to the
> more familiar tliltic "black") means "stranger/foreigner".
> 
> (Sources: Kevin Terraciano's Mixtecs of Colonial Oaxaca; Cave, City
> and Eagle's Nest: An Interpretative Journey Through the Mapa de
> Cuauhtinchan No. 2; Diccionario Nahuatl de los municipios de Mecayapan
> y Tatahuicapan de Juarez, Veracruz.)

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