The quachtli was a standardized
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
cloth used as
commodity money
Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects having value or use in themselves (intrinsic value) as well as their value in buying goods.
This is in contrast to representat ...
in
Post-Classic Mesoamerica, most notably within the
Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...
tributary empire.
Etymology
A
Nahuatl word, it is sometimes written as cuachtli or cuāchtli.
Usage
The cloth was white and represented a specific amount of labor time. The length and quality also affected the value.
Items such as
cacao bean
The cocoa bean (technically cocoa seed) or simply cocoa (), also called the cacao bean (technically cacao seed) or cacao (), is the dried and fully fermented seed of '' Theobroma cacao'', from which cocoa solids (a mixture of nonfat substanc ...
s and
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
dust in clear
quill
A quill is a writing tool made from a moulted flight feather (preferably a primary wing-feather) of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen, the metal- nibbed pen, the fountain pen, and, eventual ...
s were used to make small purchases, while the use of quachtli was reserved for larger purchases. Such as for the purchase of
slaves.
In the Tlapa tribute roll,
exchange rates included 1 quachtli for 20 cakes of
rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, an ...
and 112.5 quachtli for 1
warrior costume.
The
standard of living has been expressed using quachtli, with an estimate saying an individual could live for a year on 20 quachtli.
There is little evidence that this cloth was worn.
Its monetary usage continued into the early
Spanish colonial period
See also
*
Axe-monies
Axe-monies (Spanish: ''Tajaderos'') refer to bronze artifacts found in both western Mesoamerica and the northern Andes. Based on ethnohistorical, archaeological, chemical, and metallurgical analyses, the scholars Hosler, Lechtman and Holm have ...
*
Tilmàtli
A ''tilmàtli'' (or ''tilma''; nci, tilmahtli, ) was a type of outer garment worn by men as a cloak/ cape, documented from the late Postclassic and early Colonial eras among the Aztec and other peoples of central Mexico.
Styling
The garme ...
References
{{Means of Exchange
History of money
Currencies of Mexico