The readiest source of information about the Aztec use of cacao is of course, Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico." In a note there[1] we read in this connection: "Torquemada has extracted particulars of the yearly expenditure of the palace from the royal account book, which came into the historian's possession. The following are some of the items: 4,900,300 fanegas of maize (the fanega is equal to about 100 pounds); 2,744,000 fanegas of cacao; 8,000 turkeys, 1,300 baskets of salt; besides an incredible quantity of game of every kind, vegetables, condiments, etc." A cacao consumption, according to this, almost equal to the world's entire production today!
Fig. 1. Aztec glyph or pictograph for 80 bales of cacao. Each pennant stands for 20. The oval figure on the bale is the sign for cacao beans. The pictographer must have wanted to make the meaning unmistakable, or he desired to exercise his artistic skill, for to the usual glyph he has added a flower growing out of one side of the bale, as from the trunk of a cacao tree. (The Book of Tributes).
In the Book of Tributes[2], an old Mexican codex, setting forth the "Tributes which some towns of Mexico paid to the Emperor Montezuma," there are speci-
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