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Model of Aztec relay runner carrying a supply of fish, Post Office building, Mexico City (Click on image to enlarge) |
At its height Mexica (Aztec) society was highly organised, and required a swift and efficient system of communication between imperial centre (Tenochtitlan) and the outlying regions and tribute centres on which it depended. The Mexica were a warrior people, and their success in war rested largely on the huge support structure - from loadbearers carrying supplies to couriers (runners) taking vital messages of command and information as fast as possible to and from the heart of the empire.
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Aztec messenger, Codex Mendoza folio 70r (detail) (Click on image to enlarge) |
News was generally sent by word of mouth, only on occasion ‘written’ using glyphs on blocks of wood or folded bark paper sheets. Messengers - paynani in Náhuatl - constituted a skilled and well-trained profession, often building up their fitness from a young age. A bit like London cab drivers, they knew the local highways and byways (there’s a special mention of ‘short cuts’ in the Florentine Codex!) like the backs of their hands. Many routes were peppered with staging posts - techialoyan - at regular (roughly 5-mile) intervals; these acted as store houses and bases from which a runner could be quickly despatched, covering the next section of the route at amazing speed as part of a relay of runners.
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Native runner |
Dress codes were important among the Mexica/Aztecs, and messengers proved no exception: couriers actually ‘dressed the part’ according to the news they carried. If a messenger approached the emperor’s palace with untied, messy hair it was a sign that the Aztecs had suffered a military defeat, and no-one spoke to him. If he arrived with his hair neatly plaited, with coloured ribbon attached, and brandishing shield and club, it was a sure sign that he bore good news, and people would follow him to the palace to share in the excitement...
Picture sources:-
• Photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Image from the Codex Mendoza (original in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) scanned from our copy of the 1938 James Cooper Clark facsimile edition, London
• Native runner illustration from www.paynani.com