Cuicacalli, the ‘House of Song.' was the school for the elites that taught ritual dances and songs. However, Cuicacalli also functioned as a meeting place for elite men and ahuianime (courtesans) during the daytime. According to Diego Duran:
“Let us now speak of the ordinary dance which the warriors and soldiers performed daily, during the daytime, in that same building and school of dance [cuicacalli]. They went there to dance as a pastime, coming to an agreement, betting among themselves that they would find someone who would desire them. For that courtyard became filled to bursting with harlots [ahuianime], for there were many of these, and extremely shameless. These warriors, known as tequihuaque, went there and, dressed in their best, danced in fine style. Since they were fearless men and highly esteemed, they were permitted to keep mistresses, play with women, and woo publicly, all these things being permitted as a reward for their bravery. When one of these men saw a harlot looking at him with a certain amount of interest, he beckoned to her and, taking her by the hand, danced with her in that dance. Thus he spent the entire evening with that woman, holding her by the hand while they danced, giving her color for her lips and cheeks, feathers for her head, and jewels for her neck. Each one regaled the woman he had taken a fancy to as best he could. This round of pleasure lasted until it was time for the youths and maidens to come to the school.”
Following this description, this drawing shows warriors of various ranks meeting with ahuianime at the courtyard of Cuicacalli.
The overall structure of cuicacalli is based on the Codex Mendoza. Its roof has clay ornaments known as "almenas," which served as both architectural decoration and symbolic markers for the building. Under these almenas is a long frieze with two lines of circular decorations. This frieze decoration also served as a marker to denote each building's purpose and importance. One last element from the Mendoza is the multi-colored stripes on the wooden beams at the entrance. These stripes were also shown in the calmecac from the same codex, another elite educational institution.
The mural at the main gate of cuicacalli is the ‘speech scroll’ based on Codex Borbonicus. This volute-shaped speech scroll in codices was primarily used to represent the idea of speech. When someone speaks in the codex, this scroll is drawn in front of their mouth. However, the variation in size, color, and additional elements gives this glyph more complicated meanings. This particular speech scroll, with a flower (xochitl) on top, denotes ‘noble speech’ and, by extension, ritual song. This glyph is drawn directly next to the god of music, Huehuecoyotl, which lends credence to this interpretation. The mural at the gate next to it is the head of this coyote deity, based on Codex Borgia.
The main characters are dressed in a costume for the Huey Tecuilhuitl festival. Huey Tecuilhuitl is the eighth month of the Aztec calendar. The festival in this month was largely dedicated to Xilonen and Cihuacoatl. The festival itself comprised of various rituals and activities, such as giving food to poor men and women. One of the important rituals of this day was the dance at the courtyard of Cuicacalli. Following is the rough sequence of events during this ritual dance, as described in the Codex Florentine.
When the sun rises, the braziers are laid in six rows at the courtyard of Cuicacalli. When this was done, warriors of various ranks emerged from the building, each with the ahuiani. These courtesans were ‘the best ones, the chosen ones, those set apart.'
The whirling dance soon followed. This dance would last late into the night. Sometimes, even the tlatoani himself danced together with them. “They might go in line when they danced, they held one another by the hand, they held one another about the waist. (...) And they whirled about repeatedly; they went passing by the braziers; they went passing among them; they went entering into all the rows of braziers. When they had gone to reach there where the space ended, once more they circled back; they returned whence they had started.”
When the dance was finished, all participants returned to their homes. The ahuianime returned to the cuicacalli. However, noblemen and tiachcauh could ask the matrons (female supervisors) to take some of them to their homes. They would give gifts to the ahuiani and matron on the spot, and then the courtesan would go to spend the night with them.
The Codex Florentine describes each participant's costume in detail. The most striking aspect of these ahuianime’s costume is their fancy huipil. It had a large, deep neck opening, which is unusual for Nahua huipils. This kind of huipil was often found in the more tropical lowland Maya area.
Another interesting element is the ‘streamers’ of dark green and tawny colors. The most plausible interpretation of this is the knot-like ribbons found in the tilmatli (cloak) from Tlaxcaltec pictorial sources such as Lienzo de Tlaxcala.
The designs are unusual as well. The designs of huipil are listed as smoke (poc), house (cacalloh), and fish (mimichchoh). The designs of skirts are heart (yollo), ‘mat design like birds’ gizzards’ (totolitipetlayo), quilted-like (cacamoliuhqui), and spirals (ilacatziuhqui or tlatzcallotl). The skirts also all had borders and fringes.
These ahuianime had no face paint and no feather ornaments. Their hair was unbound while dancing, but later—presumably after the dance—they braided their hair up to their forehead.
In the drawing, the ahuiani on the left is Cuicatototl, and the one on the right is Citlalin. And the deer in the middle is Xochimazatl. Cuicatototl is wearing a fish-patterned huipil with a quilted-patterned skirt; Citlalin is wearing a house-patterned huipil with a heart-patterned skirt. Their hairs are all loose, and they’re wearing no makeup. The jaguar ahuiani in the background is wearing a smoke-patterned huipil.
This drawing is set in 1488, which is three years before the ‘present day (1491)’. Xochimazatl is 20, Citlalin is 36, and Cuicatototl is 33 in this setting. Technically, Cuicatototl is from Chalco, so she likely wouldn’t have participated in the ritual of Tenochtitlan. However, I could not miss the opportunity to draw this new OC, so please take this as some artistic liberty.
The reason why I took the setting earlier is because I could not decipher the description of the dance costume of the tequihua (which is the rank of the current-day Xochimazatl) in the Codex Florentine. Unfortunately, a lot of the elements were impossible to reconstruct because of the lack of pictorial evidence.
So, here Xochimazatl is tiachcauh, the ‘master of the youths.’ Xochimazatl was promoted to this rank in 1487, when he took his third prisoner in Huexotla. Tiachcauh taught the students at the military school called telpochcalli. Xochimazatl became a tequihua in 1489, when he took his fourth prisoner in Oztoman, and this is his rank as of 1491.
According to the Codex Florentine, Tiachcahuan wore the black net cloak (tliltic cuechintli tenixyo), turquoise earplugs (xiuhnacochtli), straw-shaped lip plugs (tenzacatl), a heron feather headdress (aztaxelli), and a seashell necklace (chipolcozcatl). They applied black paint on their bodies, with various stripes on the face. Their hair was shorn in a mohawk style, but leaving the long tuft of hair on the back. This array is quite consistently depicted in multiple codices.
Sources
Aztec Tripod Brazier with chalchihuitl motifs, 1470~1521, Private collection
Codex Borbonicus
Codex Borgia
Codex Florentine
Codex Mendoza
Codex Telleriano-Remensis
Diego Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites
Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt, The Essential Codex Mendoza, University of California Press, 1997
Mexica sandstone statue of a standard bearer, Castillo de Teayo, 1400-1521, The Metropolitan Museum of Art