56 • The deaTh of azTec TenochTiTLan, The Life of mexico ciTy
conquest of Tehuantepec, as well as other objects that were
part of the spoils of war.” 12
If battle dress was associated with faraway places, the
court dress of valley rulers often referenced the nearby,
particularly the skills of urban women, who were master
dyers, spinners, weavers, and embroiderers. In Tenochti-
tlan, women of the royal court were particularly important
creators of luxury cloth. We see an example of their art in
another page from the Codex Ixtlilxochitl, this one present-
ing a portrait of Nezahualcoyotl’s son, Nezahualpilli (figure
3.3). He wears an elaborate version of the basic clothing that
most men of central Mexico wore: an elegant blue cloak,
or tilmatli, over his shoulders, this turquoise-patterned
cloak with a distinctive shell border worn only by high-
status rulers and called the xiuhtilmatli-techilnahuayo, and
a coordinated embroidered loincloth, or max tlatl, around
his middle. 13 The exquisite embroidery along the borders,
both patterned and figural (the open maw of the earth deity
appears on his maxtlatl over his groin) was almost certainly
the handiwork of his female court. 14
While the associations of feathers allowed the huei
tlatoani to bring the periphery to the center, and court cos-
tume put the skills of nearby urban women on display, the
ruler’s frequent adoption of deity costumes for ceremonial
occasions also allowed him to represent the forces that
existed in other layers of the universe on the terrestrial
plane. Both in public appearances and in sculptural repre-
sentations, rulers wore the garb of particular deities. But
this was more than mere surface costuming; instead, the
ruler took on the identity of that deity, as if transubstanti-
ated. In both written and visual representations of Mexica
kingship, we find the huei tlatoani acting as a deity delegate.figuRe 3.3. Unknown creator, portrait of Nezahualpilli, Codex
Ixtlilxochitl, fol. 108r, ca. 1580. Ms. Mexicain 65–71, Bibliothèque
nationale de France, Paris.figuRe 3.2. Unknown creator, portrait of Nezahualcoyotl, Codex
Ixtlilxochitl, fol. 106r, ca. 1580. Ms. Mexicain 65–71, Bibliothèque
nationale de France, Paris.