An Aztec woman's hair was very important to her and she was greatly shamed if it were cut. Some said that a woman could not enter heaven if her hair were cut. Long, black, straight hair was the ideal. Most of the time women wore their hair loose so that it flowed down her back to her waist but sometimes they wore their hair with a piece of cotton thread twisted around the hair and coiled around the head. Only priestesses cut their hair in order to show chastens. The women of the barbarous clans neighboring the Aztecs colored their hair with mud or green herbs to add shine. Much of the Aztec style was reactionary against these clans and young Aztec women were warned not to do what they did. The hated neighboring peoples would stain their teeth black of red as well as delighting in extensive ornamentation. The Otomi women covered their arms and breasts delicate blue tattoos made with a small obsidian knife. This was considered tasteless among the Aztec where a woman of high standing was to rely on cleanliness alone to enhance her charms.
A clean body and a pleasant scent were highly sought after. Women wore wreaths of sweet smelling flowers around their necks. The Aztecs did not make soap, but they used two vegetable products instead. The fruit of the copalxocotl, soap tree, and the root of saponaria americana would both make a lather for washing the body, hair, and clothing. Cleanliness was so important to the Aztecs that when a merchant left for a long dangerous expedition he would cut his hair and pledge not to bathe his body or cut his hair until he returned. This was a large sacrifice for him and assured a safer journey. Thus cleanliness was socially necessary part of being attractive.
Jacques Soustelle quotes an Aztec writing in his book, The Daily Life of the Aztec, saying, "In the morning wash your face, wash your hands, clean your mouth. Listen to me child: never make up your face nor paint it; never put red on your mouth to look beautiful. Make-up and paint are things that light women use-shameless creatures. If you want your husband to love you, dress well, wash yourself, and wash your clothes." Make-up was not considered acceptable for most Aztec women, but some young women were allowed to decorate themselves. The young women who escorted the young warriors wore a yellow cream on their faces, wore blush, and dyed their teeth red. They also perfumed their bodies strongly and sweetened their breath. These courtesans were a socially acceptable form of prostitution but were still considered loose by the general public.
The dress of an Aztec woman was the easiest way to distinguish her status even though all Aztec women wore the same type of clothing. Little girls began wearing a skirt at the age of five. The skirt consisted only of a long piece of cloth wrapped around the waist and overlapping completely. This cloth was tied loosely at the waist with an embroidered belt and fell to the ankles. Women wore the same skirt excepting that the woman's skirt was bigger. The Aztec woman wore an embroidered blouse called a huipilli. This was a piece of cloth doubled over, a hole cut in the top, the sides left open as armholes. This simple, sleeveless shirt was worn in pre-Colombian times exclusively and is still worn today. Despite it's simplicity the blouse can be decorated to dramatically change the look of it. Some women would layer several huipillis of different lengths to give the look of an abundance of cloth. The great variety of embroidery on the shirts and skirts made possible a dramatic display of design and color. A few of these designs are leaves, spirals, blanket patterns, houses, and fishes. Some women chose to use color to represent smoke, the breast of a bird, and the earth. Many of the woman sewed fringe or ribbons into their clothing. Generally, however, women wore a white blouse and a white skirt of natural cotton or maguey and reserved extravagant decoration for celebrations and ritual dances.
Aztec women's jewelry was possibly more varied than women's dress. Jewelry was made of a variety of materials and put in a variety of body parts. The lower class wore coral, shells, and even polished clay as decoration and were forbidden by law to wear any of the most precious metals. Some commonly used materials are obsidian, rock, crystal, amber, and gold. Less common materials for jewelry are turquoise, emeralds, bloodstone, jasper, amethyst, and serpentine were reserved for the noble people. Gold and feathers were displayed in the hair and on the sandals of the nobles. Women wore earrings, necklaces, and bracelets on her arms and ankles. Beads for the necklaces were made of stone, bone, metal, wood, seeds, and shells. Some of the shells for necklaces were made to give off a tinkling sound when the wearer moved.These decorations were used to mark social status and thus made the woman more desirable.
The Aztec people, as in every culture, had an ideal for the physique of a woman. The princess who was ignored for not having any flesh demonstrates a disgust for an extremely thin woman. This could be related to an association of disease with thinness. Older women were known to tell younger women to not have babies early because it would ruin their bodies. This gives us the idea that perhaps sagging breasts and wide hips were not considered desirable, but a young, coquettish looking body was.
The strict Aztec code of behavior for women made ideal demeanor a difficult to obtain and therefore highly desirable. An Aztec woman was trained from birth to be a hearth-centered and docile. Modesty was the dominant characteristic of a good woman. If a woman was immodest she was an embarrassment to her family. Sexuality was such a discreetly discussed topic that often archaeologists have trouble identifying who is a female and who is male in Aztec documents. In order to gain an idea of what is desired we must look at what is not desired. In a poem quoted in Ferdinand Anton's, Women in Pre-Columbian America an Aztec man describes a disgusting prostitute. The poet describes the prostitute as, "...disgustingly dressed up, disgustingly made up, a woman of lust...she smells badly...to and fro she saunters along the street...lolls and sprawls, quarrels with women..." An Aztec woman was not supposed to be walking about leisurely, but rather working hard for her family and taking care of the house and her children.
Soon after the woman married she was expected to bear children. Other than unfaithfulness, an offense deserving of execution, sterility was the most serious grounds for divorce. Receiving news of pregnancy in the family was a joyous occasion. The Aztecs loved their children dearly and celebrated a child's entry into the world with a banquet at which thanks was given for the unborn baby and blessing the mother. A midwife was involved in the pregnancy from the beginning. She massaged the expectant mother and bathed her in warm water. The midwife advised that the woman keep out of the heat, eat good meals, and avoid shocks to prevent miscarriage. When the birth neared to a few days the mother was given medicines for the pain made of bark and opossum tail. At the moment of birth the midwife let out a war cry to honor the mother and greeted the new baby as described earlier.
This cycle of life continued without much interruption for many years until the entry of the Spaniards. When Cortes heard roumors of a great city flowing with riches he set out to make a name for himself. When he and his men first saw the city in 1519 they thought it looked like it was from a fantasy. After several near fatal attempts Cortes finally was able to defeat the Aztecs by using siege tactics and information from surrounding tribes. After three months the lack of food and fresh water and the spread of disease from a slave who contracted small pox while translating for the Spanish killed fifty percent of the Aztec population. While the Spaniards waited several miles away Tenochtitlan became a horrific death trap. The city of Tenochtitlan fell on August 13, 1521. Aztec life continues on a small scale in the valley of Mexico even now. The people remember the past but it is not only history to the modern Aztec women. Theirs is a living history in which they see life as a continuing cycle of destruction and creation. They continue with their everyday lives speaking their native language of Nahuatl and holding on to the traditions of a long fallen empire.
The loss is expressed in a Nahua poem written in 1523:
Nothing remains
but flowers and sad songs
In Tlatelolco and Mexico
Where once there were
Warriors and wise men