The jaguar warriors

Ranks in the Codex Mendoza

The Codex Mendoza is believed to have been made around 1541 for the Spanish viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, and it has been held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford since 1659. In traditional Aztec pictures with Spanish explanations, it describes Aztec life before the conquest. The lower half of folio 64r sets out the ranks awarded to warriors: a warrior’s equipment and suit of honour grow grander as he rises, and the jaguar warrior is among the ranks shown. Describing a page of these warrior pictures, the Newberry Library says they illustrate the importance of war captives in gaining social rank.

To verify: An earlier record: a stone jaguar dated 1400–1521 at the Brooklyn Museum, whose label is said to link the jaguar with courage. We could not open the museum’s page.

Jaguars and eagles

In the Aztec warrior societies, men were ranked by the number of captives they had taken, and that number decided which suit of honour, or tlahuiztli, each could wear. Those who showed the most bravery and fought well became jaguar or eagle warriors, ocelotl and cuauhtli in Nahuatl, the words for the two animals. The jaguars wore jaguar skins over the whole body, with only the face showing from within the jaguar’s head. Commoners who excelled in war could be raised to the noble class and enter these societies.

To verify: How many captives made a jaguar or eagle warrior: Wikipedia’s articles say four, while a British Museum caption we could not open is said to give more than four and to say most members were nobles.

How we tell it

We draw the jaguar alone, not a warrior in costume, because the warrior societies belong to Aztec history and a suit of honour was earned in battle. The page tells what the jaguar meant to Aztec warriors; it makes no promise to anyone who wears its image.