Today's post is part of the series on paper made from beaten bark in the Americas, Asia, and Polynesia, and the possible common trans-pacific origin for this prehistoric industry.
Yesterday's post looked into the British Columbian and Alaskan beaten bark traditions. This post will explore the Mesoamerican paper.
Maguey
Maguey or agave (Agave americana) is well known because its starches, after processing, become alcohoic beverages like pulque, tequila, and mezcal. The natives used them for many purposes, from construction and food, to medicine and as a source of textile fiber and paper. Below is a picture of a maguey.
During the conquest of the Aztec empire, chroniclers like Francisco López de Gomara (Historia de la Conquista de México, p.449) described the use of maguey fiber. de Gomara wrote in 1552: "Metl is a tree that some call maguey and others call cardón... From the leaves of this plant they make paper, which is used everywhere for sacrifices and painters. They also make espadrilles, mats, blankets, girths, halters, and finally, it is hemp and is spun."
Friar Toribio de Motolinia (1482-1569), in his Memoriales (p. 317) gives a similar account, calling the maguey "metl": "From those maguey leaves, thread for sewing is obtained; they also make cords, ropes, hawsers, girths, and halters, and everything made from hemp is made from metl. They make clothing and footwear from it, because the Indians' footwear is apostolic, for they are properly sandals: the Indians call them cactli. They also make espadrilles like those of Andalusia. They make blankets and capes from this metl... From these agave leaves they make a paper of glued cotton, as thin as a fine veil, and on this paper, resting on top of an agave stalk, they carve all their drawings, and it is one of the principal tools of their trade."
In the 1700s Francisco Javier Clavijero also mentioned the use of maguey for paper manufacture. (Source) on p. 383 and 420. It also provided fiber for clothes (p. 383). He also described the use of paper as garments, and flags in relgious ceremonies and funerals (p.317, 330).
Clavijero describes how they made paper from maguey leaves, and from a palm called iczotl (p. 410) he added that "I have held in my hands many sheets of this Mexican paper. It is quite similar to European cardboard, although much softer and smoother, and one can write on it comfortably. The sheets of this paper were enormous."
Below is a photo of an iczotl, Yucca aloifolia.
Regarding maguey cloth, the image below shows a man selling maguey cloth known as áyatl. The text on the upper side of the image says "maguey thread". The Spanish text captioning the picture is the following: "And the blankets she sells are white, coated with dough, burnished, well-crafted, and have wide or narrow legs, long or elongated, thick or fat, stiff or sturdy; in short, all the maguey blankets that have designs. Some she sells that are very sparse, that look like nothing more than a headscarf, such as the very thin blankets woven with nequén fiber, and those made of twisted thread. And on the contrary, some are thick and very dense, and well-crafted, and others coarse and thick, whether made of pita or maguey thread." This image and text are part of the Florentine Codex (Book 10, folio 53r), compiled in Spanish and Nahuatl languages around 1575.
Ficus Tree paper, Amate or Amal
Other contemporary writers reported paper; Díaz del Castillo (1496-1584), in his True History of the Conquest of New Spain, tells about the conquest of the Aztec empire, in which he took part, and mentions "amal" (p. 160): "I remember that at that time his [Montezuma's] chief steward was a great chieftain, whom we named Tapia, and he kept an account of all the income that was brought to Montezuma with his books, made of their paper, which is called amal, and they had a large house of these books."
Amate paper was used for writing by the Mesoamerican pre-Hispanic civilizations, the Mayas, and the Aztecs its use survived the Spanish conquest and was used well into the 16th century, when European paper-making techniques replaced it.
Amate was made from the bark of trees belonging to the ficus genus, the red and the white jonote (Heliocarpus appendiculatus) called amacuahuitl in the Nahuatl language.
The bark was stripped from the trees, soaked in water and cooked. Then it was rinsed and pressed dry. The bark fiber was placed on a wooden board and beaten with wood or stone beaters called amahuitequini. The bark fiber was flattened and spread, softened and given a relatively smooth texture. Then it was dried. Color of amate ranged from white to pale yellow.
Paper manufacturing was an industry, its use was widespread in the Aztec region in the 15th century. Part of the tribute paid by those conquered by the city-states of Texcoco, Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan was in the form of paper, up to 400,000 reams of paper each year, produced in more than 50 villages as detailed in the Mendoza codex, a detail of tax revenue. (see p. 50, 51, 52, 53, etc.)
Amate was used not only in ceremonies, but also for records. The famous "codices", of which roughly 500 have survived the massive burning of books conducted by the Spaniards (the Inquisition and the Catholic church wanted to erradicate all traces of the pagan religions).
The jonote is still used in basket-making. Below is a picture of a man stripping bark from a jonote tree. (Source).
Maguey, Yucca, Jonote and Fusang (T'ung) Tree
Were the maguey or the jonote the trees described in the Fusang account (a mysterious land to the East of China, perhaps America?).
The original Fusang text mentions the paper and the tree: "The kingdom of Fusang lies 20,000 li east from Tahan, and directly east from China. The name of the country is derived from the tree of this name (Fusang), which grows there in abundance. Its leaves resembles those of the tree T'ung. The young sprouts are like those of the bamboo, and are eaten. The fruit resembles a pear, and is of a red colour. Cloth is made out of the bark, and paper is also prepared from it" (p. 168).
The T'ung tree is the Paulownia tomentosa (more on the T'ung in this external link), and looks similar to the jonote trees, so maybe the Buddhist monk thought they were the same species.
Tomorrow we will close this series on bark cloth with a final post.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall ©
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