Round seal, Xonecuilli

The seal before us belongs to an early tradition appearing in Mesoamerica. It is believed that in this region the first seals were made of wood or bone, perishable materials that therefore disintegrated over time, although the majority that we now know of, and that have been located through the excavations carried out by archaeologists, were modeled in clay. This material is the product of a slow natural process that takes thousands of years in which rocks with high feldspar content decompose, obtaining plasticity when mixed with water and when dried become firm.

In this way, our seal belongs to a long-lasting tradition that spanned several centuries and is recognized in many if not all areas of the Mesoamerican region as demonstrated in the study carried out by Jorge Enciso, one of the experts on seals in Mexico, in which he observes that they were an important ceremonial object and came in many shapes and sizes. Some may have been made from molds, while others were modeled by hand as is the case of the one before us; the designs are created when removing the clay around the desired shape with a pointed object and carving deep incisions.

That said, the shape of the seal allows us to know its function. For example a flat seal is the type that is required for painting a sheet of amate paper or a piece of cloth, whereas to print on a part of the human body, it is preferable to use a concave seal. In both cases, they were impregnated in pigment combined with the binding agent required to set the color, the desired surface was pressed and when the seal was lifted the design remained.

As is shown by the large collection of seals in the Amparo Museum, they come in natural shapes, fantastic creatures, and geometrical and artificial shapes, among which we can place our unique piece which was modeled in a shape that may represent the xonecuilli, a distinctive feature that possesses a variety of associations: Francisco del Paso y Troncoso affirms that the xonecuilli is a "symbol of the southern season"; while Eduard Seler considers it to be a symbol of descent, and Terence Grieder explains that the shape refers to femininity and indirectly to the earth.

The previous interpretations are based on the words stated by Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, in his General History of the Things of New Spain, who when referring to the comets indicated that "the stars within the mouth of the horn were called citlalxonecuilli by these people. Seven stars are painted in the shape of an S, and it is said that they are separate from other stars and radiant. They call them citlalxonecuilli because they are similar to a certain type of bread which is made in the shape of the letter S, and called xonecuilli". He adds that this S-shaped bread was offered during ceremonies related to different cults: the festivities dedicated to the Cihuapipiltin; in their temples as well as on crossroads they would offer this bread made in the figure of what they called xonecuilli.

This unique shape is also related to the lightning-shaped cane held by the rain gods, as well as the cane grasped by Mixcoatl and the stick that characterizes merchants, called pochteca in Nahuatl, while in the codices, for example in the Codex Borbonicus, it is commonly found applied to ritual paper that was placed by the ancient Nahuas in the temples of the gods of water and pulque, as well as on papers related to the various ceremonies linked to burial practices and painted on tools used in cultivations, specifically on hoes to mention just one of its manifestations that may help us to understand the circumstances in which our little seal was possible used.