Votan

Continuing with ths subject of my previous post, today I will share smore information on the demigod Votan.

French abbot, Brasseur de Bourbourg, mentions Votan in his work published in 1857-59, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale : durant les siècles antérieurs a Christophe Colomb Vol. 1 chap. 3

Brasseur de Bourbourg disclosed his sources: "Having been unable to obtain the original documents in the Tzendale language, which record the history of Votan and his successors, we are reduced to collecting the short fragments found scattered in the manuscript works of Ordoùez and Cabrera, and in the Diocesan Constitutions of Nunez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, etc. (see footnote 1 on p. 82).

Votan came by Sea

"In accordance with Yucatec traditions, Tzendal historians trace the origins of the famous Votan, whom their commentator believes to be on the island of Cuba, to Valum-Votan several centuries before the Christian era. After sailing along the coasts of the Peninsula, accompanied by other chiefs of his people, he advanced among the thousand islands of the Terminos Lagoon.
... Votan then traveled up the Uzumacinta River, and it is on the banks of one of the tributaries of this great river that the cradle of civilization is placed. His stay there gave birth to a city which, since then, has had the honor of being the metropolis of a great empire. It was situated at the foot of the Tumbala Mountains: the name Nachan, which is attributed to it, is less well known than that of Palenque, whose majestic ruins were revealed, barely a century ago, to the astonished eyes of travelers.
... The astonishment of the Tzendales was perhaps as great then as that which they felt, two thousand years later, at the sight of the Spaniards. For these foreigners had large boats, and wore long and loose clothing, which led to them being given the name "Tzequil", or men in women's skirts, which remained with them in this region; a tradition adds that they spoke the Nahuatl language, and that it was they who brought it to America.The Tzendales welcomed them as brothers, and Votan was rewarded with unique insights they imparted to him concerning divinity and the governance of men. Their settlement in the land was soon followed by an alliance with the Tzendale women. Enlightened and instructed by them, Votan wisely worked to organize the administration of his states; from this time truly dates the foundation of the Palenquean empire.
... Nevertheless, the circumstances of his first voyage, as Ordonez extracted them from the Tzendal histories, are too remarkable not to give them verbatim here: “Votan,” it is said, “wrote a collection on the origin of the Indians and their transmigration to these lands. The main argument of his work is reduced to proving that he descends from Imos, that he is of the race of Chan, the Serpent, and that he originates from Chivim. He was, he says, the first man whom God sent to this region to populate and divide the lands that we call America.” He describes the route he followed and adds that after founding his settlement he made several trips to Valum-Chivim. These trips numbered four: in the first, he recounts that, having left ValumVotan, he took his way towards the "Abode of the Thirteen Serpents." From there, he went to Valum-Chivim, from where he passed to the city where he saw the house of God, which was being built. He then went to the ruins of the ancient edifice, which men had erected, by the command of their common ancestor, so that they might, by this means, reach heaven. He adds that the men with whom he conversed assured him that this edifice was the place from which God had given each family a particular language. He affirms that upon his return from the house of God he went a second time to examine all the underground passages through which he had already passed, and the signs that were found there. He says that he was led through an underground path that went beneath the earth and ended at the root of the heavens: regarding this circumstance, he adds that this path was nothing other than a serpent's hole, into which he entered because he was the Son of the Serpent."

The story continues, with his actions (like introducing the tapir into the region), and travels. There is no hint of a European or Asian origin in this text. The arrival of Votan took place 2000 years before the Spaniards reached Mexico (which took place in the early 1500s) so this happened around 500 BC.

The nonsense of Votan, Babel, and Noah

Brasseur de Bourbourg also translated the Mayan book known as "Popol Vuh" and in his introduction, he mentions Votan once again: "Don Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguiar, canon and provost of the bishopric of Ciudad-Real, otherwise known as San-Cristobal de Chiapas, appears to have been the first to have had knowledge of Ximenez's historical works, and to have used the translation of the Quiche manuscript: he copied this document, altering it from beginning to end, in order to melt it into his indigestible work entitled Historia del cielo y de la tierra, etc., where he tends to establish that Votan, placed as the third sign of the tzendal calendar, was the descendant of the Hivites*, that is to say of the Canaanites, driven out of Palestine by Joshua, and who, having emigrated to the Canaries, would have passed from there to the Antilles. Its main objective was to prove that Quetzalcohuatl was the same as the apostle Saint Thomas, who was said to have been miraculously brought from India to America to preach the Gospel.

* Hivites are a nation mentioned in the Bible in Israel, in Joshua 11:3.

Interestingly Alexander von Humboldt also mentioned Votan and Odin (Vues des Cordilleres, published in 1810) as follows (page 72):

"In the kingdom of Guatimala (sic), the inhabitants of Teochiapan preserved traditions that dated back to the time of a great flood, after which their ancestors, led by a chief named Votan, had come from a land to the north. In the village of Teopixea, descendants of the family of Votan or Vodan (these two names are the same, as the Toltecs and Aztecs did not have the four consonants d, b, l, and s in their languages) still existed in the sixteenth century. Those who have studied the history of the Scandinavian peoples in heroic times must be struck by the discovery in Mexico of a name reminiscent of Vodan or Odin, who reigned among the Scythians, and whose lineage, according to Bede's remarkable assertion, "gave kings to a great number of peoples."
If it were true, as several scholars have supposed, that these same Toltecs, whom a plague combined with a great drought had driven from the Anahuac plateau around the middle of the eleventh century AD, reappeared in South America as founders of the Inca Empire, how could the Peruvians not have abandoned their script to adopt the Toltec hieroglyphic writing? Almost at the same time, at the beginning of the twelfth century, a Greenlandic bishop had brought, not to the continent of America, but to Newfoundland (Vinland), Latin books, perhaps the same ones that the Zeni brothers found there in 1580."

On page 148, von Humboldt again mentions Votan: "We have already drawn our readers' attention above to this Votan or Wodan, an American who appears to be related to the Wods or Odins of the Goths and peoples of Celtic origin. Since, according to the scholarly research of Sir William Jones, Odin and Buddha are probably the same person, it is curious to see the names Boud-var, Wodans-dag (Wednes-day), and Votan designate, in India, Scandinavia, and Mexico, the day of a short period. According to ancient traditions collected by Bishop François Nuñez de la Vega, "the Wodan of the Chiapas people was the grandson of that illustrious old man who, during the great flood in which most of humankind perished, was saved on a raft, he and his family." Then, he mentions the tower of Babel! "Wodan cooperated in the construction of the great edifice that the men undertook to reach heaven: the execution of this audacious project was interrupted; each family was henceforth given a different language, and the great spirit Teotl commanded Wodan to go and populate the land of Anahuac. This American tradition recalls the Menou of the Hindus, the Noah of the Hebrews, and the dispersion of the Cuscbites of Singar."

In his "Historia antigua de Mexico..." Francesco Saverio Clavigero (1731-1787) cites Nuñez de la Vega, bishop of Chiapas, who mentions Votan as moving on after the Babel tower incident (p. 136), and being the first to people Chiapas after the Noachian flood (p. 152).

Even the Mormons took advantage of an "Israelite" Votan to further their religion. You can read an interesting article online here, Votan, the culture hero of the Mayas published in the Juvenile Instructor, Vol. 14, No. 5 (1 March 1879), pp. 57–58.

However, the Middle East connection does not necessarily imply Israelites, it could also involve Phoenicians, which makes more sense.

---

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Phoenicians Discovery of America (Book from 1892) and Votan

Thomas Crawford Johnson wrote a short essay titled "Did the Phoenicians Discover America?", published in 1892 by the Geographic Society of California.

This essay is a short read, and suggests among other things, that the Phoenicians knew how to navigate using the magnetic compass (p.14), that their voyages for the Jewish kings took 3 years, and this time would imply that they sailed to America's western coast (p. 22) via Melanesia and Easter Island to Peru, and the coast of Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Central America.

One would have expected them to sail across the Atlantic, from Gades (Cadiz) to Mexico, but they didn't they took the longer route, along the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Bengal, skirted Java and Sumatra, sailed between Australia and New Guinea, across Polynesia and the Pacific all the way to Northern Chile.

The image below from Crawford Johnson's work shows the route taken by the Phoenicians:

Route taken by the Phoenicians to America. Source

The book mentions a voyager recorded by the Native Americans called Votan (p.28): ""Votan, it seems, came from a foreign land, and found the whole country, from Darien to California, occupied by a barbarous people. Votan and his followers arrived in large ships, and wore long, flowing garments." According to one document by Ordonez this event is laid a thousand years before Christ. It is desirable to notice that this date corresponds exactly with the dates given in the Bible narrative of the historic voyages of Hiram and Solomon, and the building of the temple, which was about l000 B. C. " This journey to America from their native country was a long and painful one and indicates that seas and lands intervened between them. The tradition reports it to be in the far East, and that the first comers filled seven ships.""

This is a quote of someone named Ordonez (actually Ordoñez). This person was Father Ramon Ordonez de Aguilar, a Catholic priest who served in the Maya region and wrote a book called "Probanza de Votan" (more on him further down).

Crawford's text also suggests that the gold and silver brought to Israel came from Mesoamerica, the only possible source for such wealth. Finally it mentions the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (p.30) "The native traditions held that Quetzalcoatl traversed the peninsula, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and on reaching the last ocean, sent back his companions to tell the Cholulans that in a future age his brothers, white men and bearded like himself, would land there from the sea, where the sun rises, and come to rule the country." Suggesting that the Phoenicians would return from the East, crossing the Atlantic Ocean,

Votan - the Civilizing Gold

The Probanza de Votan was a native text, surely a codex, written in the native Tseltal language and it was illustrated. The Spanish authorities held it until the 18th Century when it mysteriously got lost. It seems that Votan was the Mayan equivalent of the Aztec Quetzalcoatl. He founded Palenque, navigated in a boat with his family during the Universal Flood, brought his people to settle Yucatan among the natives. There was even a day in the Maya calendar named after him.

There have been wild conjectures about Votan being Woden (similar sounding names) or Odin of the Scandinavians (see p. 81 in Historia Antigua de la Conquista de Mexico by Manuel Orozco y Berra, 1880) or even Buddha! (see chapter V in the same book).

A serious, scholarly paper on the subject was published in 2009 by a Historian, Díaz Perera, Miguel Angel (Tras las huellas de Palenque: las primeras exploraciones. LiminaR, 7(1), 104-134. http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1665-80272009000100007&lng=es&tlng=es). He mentions the Probanza de Votan text and that Ordoñez had written about "A white, bearded Christian priest named Votán, who arrived by sea and founded Nachán (Palenque) after having traveled through Spain, Rome and Jerusalem." In his paper, Diaz Perera mentions research by Frederic Waldeck, published in 1832 after he visited Palenque and interviewed the natives there:

"The traditions that have been communicated to me by the misanthrope of the ruins seem worth recording [...] The true name of the ruins of Palenque is Natchan, and not Otitoiun, which is a foreign word in the Chol language, and which would be more accurately described as Mayan, a language derived from it. Around ten centuries before the birth of Christ, three white, bearded individuals came from the place where the sun rises: the first, the sage Ymas; the second, Ik; and the third, Vot&aacut;en, the one who attained all the renown that tradition bestowed upon him. Although corn is indigenous, it was not as prevalent in the landscape as it was in his time, and it was Votán who brought them this marvel; he united it with civilization and the arts. The time of his death is a problem; tradition, if it is accurate, says he died violently, and nine kings succeeded him, each to reign for half a century, according to the custom he himself had prescribed. An ambitious one succeeded him, and his name was Chanan (5). Those who came after were Abaghu (6), Bem (7), Hix (8), Tzequin, Chabin, Chinax, Cahagh, and Akbal. It was under this last king that Natchan was destroyed by the nation of Tula, a city that had been founded by Votan and which later became an enemy of Natchan (referring to Tonina). Its ruins are near Ocosingo."

There is however a book by Ordoñz, published online where he mentions the "Probanzas de Votan" and its loss, and also provides more information on Votan on p.14.

I hadn't heard about Votan until now. He seems to be a civilizing demigod similar to Amalivaca, who brought civilization to the Orinoco River natives in Venezuela, Viracocha among the Incas and, of course, Quetzalcoatl.

In my next post I will comment on the details about Votan published by abbot Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1857-59, and some other comments, including von Humboldt on Votan from 1810.

---

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Bark Cloth - Conclusion

I will try to wrap up the series of posts on bark-cloth in the Pacific region.

I have given examples and mentioned the different bark-cloth traditions found in Indonesia (Sualwesi - Celebes), Polynesia, Mesoamerica (Mayas and Aztecs), Northwestern Pacific coast of North America (British Columbia and Canda). The use of bark cloth was frequent in these societies before the arrival of Europeans, who replaced them with linnen, and cotton garments (Polynesia, Asia and NW North America - in Mesoamerica cotton was used in textiles by the upper classes) and with European paper.

Non woven textiles: Beaten Bark cloth

Beating bark to produce a fine and soft non-woven fiber which is shaped to produce barkcloth has been a common practice in many cultures around the world.

It is ancient, and predates weaving (interlacing threads in a crisscross pattern). The discovery of beaten bark may be very ancient, and originate in different places in a convergent independent discovery process, or, perhaps, a shared ancient knowledge like fire-making, or fish hook making, stone knapping, part of the survival kit of our ancestors.

Africa

The Mbuti pygmies of the D.R. of Congo in Africa have made and used barkcloth since antiquity (known as "pongo" in Kimbuti language and "molumba" in Kiswahili), they used it for their loincloths and traded it with farmers for food. They are made from bark of different trees, pounded with ivory hammers and painted by the women (Learn more: Barkcloth Designs of Mbuti Women, Barry S. Hewlett and L.L. Cavalli-Sforza (1991) Human Mossaic, Vol. 25, Nos. 1-2).

Southeast China and into Polynesia

The Southeastern China barkcloth beaters dating back almost 8,000 years were found in Dingmo, Guangxi (Dawei Li, Wei Wang, Feng Tian, Wei Liao, Christopher J. Bae, (2014). The oldest bark cloth beater in southern China (Dingmo, Bubing basin, Guangxi), Quaternary International, Vol 354, 15 December 2014, ps 184-189.) Dingmo site is SW China (see Google Map) produced a beater excavated from a layer dated to 7898 ± 34 BP. This is roughly 1,300 years older than the previous oldest beater, found at the Xiantouling Site in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China (close to Hong Kong).

These were neolithic modern humans, who spoke an Austric language (this was long before the current Han-Chinese appeared). They originated the proto-Austronesian people and language, which later spread south across Indonesia, Melanesia, and Poloynesia.

Current consensus (Source) is that the bark cloth technology that originated in SE China, spread from there to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and with the outflow of Austronesians, into Papua New Guinea, and the near Pacific Islands Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, and then into Polynesia, Niue, Cook Islands, Salomon Islands, Hawaii, and New Zealand. These peoiple made "Tapa cloth" and used the bark of paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) of the Moraceae family. Surprisingly, Africans also use ficus trees from the Moraceae family like Ficus natalensis (Mutuba) and Antiaris toxicaria (Kilundu).

A paper published in 2015 used DNA to track the trees used in barkcloth across SE Asia, Melanesia and Polynesia, suggesting that the migrants who moved from Taiwan into this region, took the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) with them together with their dogs, chickens, and pigs (C. Chang,H. Liu,X. Moncada,A. Seelenfreund,D. Seelenfreund, & K. Chung, (2015). A holistic picture of Austronesian migrations revealed by phylogeography of Pacific paper mulberry, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112 (44) 13537-13542, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1503205112.)

The study reported that "Using chloroplast DNA sequences, we demonstrate a tight genealogical link between its populations in South China and North Taiwan, and South Taiwan and Remote Oceania by way of Sulawesi and New Guinea, presenting the first study, to our knowledge, of a commensal plant species transported to Polynesia whose phylogeographic structure concurs with expectations of the “out of Taiwan” hypothesis of Austronesian expansion..."

But barkcloth didn't catch on in New Zealand. (Source) the ancestors of the Maoris brought their paper mulberry with them, which they called "aute" but it didn't gro well there, and bark cloth which was suitable in a Tropical climate didn't stand up to the colder and wetter New Zealand weather.

The Maori used local species like houhi, whauwhi, or houhere to replace the aute, but eventually they plaited and knitted strips of bark, and fiber from different vines and grasses to knit their skirts and capes-

Bark cloth in Mesoamerica

The Maya used different ficus species to make bark paper (Source). The main source for bark paper was the amate tree. Paper which they used for codices (books) and clothing for the poor. They also used bark from non-ficus trees for this purpose.

The Aztec people also used ficus and jonote, as well as a species of yucca, and maguey fiber. For paper and also for fiber which, they wove into mats and clothes for the lower classes. Notice the emphasis in the word "wove". The Aztecs had deep textile knowledge, and weaved cloth using not only maguey fiber, but also cotton, and wool. This wasn't beaten bark, it was a fiber fashioned from beaten plant fiber (maguey). Their paper was indeed beaten bark. But not used for clothes amont the Aztecs.

Northwestern North America

The natives along the Pacific coast of Canada and Alaska used the bark of redwoods (cedar) to make beaten bark textiles. The texts that I found show that they wove it, without using a loom, so it was similar to the Mexican textiles: it was woven, this makes it different to the Polynesian "tapa" wich was a non-woven textile.

Amazon Ashenikas

The Ashenika people who live in the Peruvian Amazon (Google Maps), wear a tunic called cushma. It is their typical dress, and it is made with woven cotton. Perhaps they adopted weaving after their contact with the advanced Inca civilization that lived to the west. But it seems likely that they originally used beaten bark for their clothing.

Sø Hvalkof, a researcher from Copenhagen University acquired a barkcloth cushma made in the Ene region. The natives told him that similar bark cloth cushmas were still used in the remote jungle areas between the Tambo River and the Gran Pajonal.

The Ashéninka Indians produced barkcloth cushmas in the past, and this fact was recorded by John Elick, 1970¹ who reported having seen children in the hills east of the Nevati river wearing rough cushmas of barkcloth in the 1950s. They were made from a ficus the natives called llanchama, (Olmeida aspera), a Moracea They told Hvalkof in the 1980s that they still knew how to make them, but that they lost their shape when the got wet, and preferred woven cotton clothes. Source and Source

¹ Elick, John William. 1970. An ethnography of the Pichis Valley Campa of Eastern Peru. Los Angeles: University of California dissertation. (297pp.).

Conclusion

Human beings are resourceful creatures who learn how to use what nature has to offer. The beaten bark fiber used by Africans, Asians, and Amerindians seems to be either an ancestral knowledge, or one fruit of independent discovery. The Melanesians and Polynesians seem to be the only group who received it as part of the Austronesian culture, as their ancestors moved across Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, into New Guinea, and the South Pacific Islands.

I don't think that the Polynesians took their beaten bark techniques to America.

Bark cloth Pacific rim. Fig. 2. Judith Cameron

As mentioned in my previous post, Judith Cameron (Trans-oceanic transfer of bark-cloth technology from South China-Southeast Asia to Mesoamerica?, 2008, in Islands of inquiry: colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes (Terra Australis 29). Editors, Geoffrey Clark, Foss Leach & Sue O'Connor, PublisherANU ePress, pp.203-210. Vol 1.) suggested an independent discovery of barkcloth:

"Notwithstanding the above-mentioned parallels, there is also the possibility that the Meso-american archaeological bark-cloth beaters belong to an independent cultural tradition that has no links with Southeast China or Southeast Asia... An... explanation is that prehistoric groups in Mesoamerica independently developed stone bark-cloth beaters..."

---

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Bark Cloth among the Mesoamericans (amate)

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.

Tro-Cortesiano Codex, AD 1250-1500. Museo de América. Source

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 ©