The Use of Plants and Other Natural Products for Malevolent Practices Among the Aztecs and their Successors

Resumen

The pre-Columbian Americans had an extensives knowledge of medicinal plants which were used against a wide range of diseases. The Aztecs of Mexico provide the best sources as documented by the Spanish conquerers. Apart from the Badianus Codex, Francisco Hernández, the personal physician of Felipe II of Spain, has described about fifteen hundred medicinal plants each of which was applied against one or more discases in the "Aztec" region. Bernardino de Sahagún described a smaller number of medicinal plants, but his texts are especially important in that they were based on dictations of the indigenous Nahuatl language. Sahagún posed questions to leading Aztec wise men (tlamatini), among them noted physicians, and thc subscquent answers were given and recorded in Nahuatl.