Pochteca

A new word for the New World

    I wouldn’t bring it up except I saw this in a paper I’m studying: “James Porter (1969), whose research was strongly Cahokia-centric, envisioned an American Bottom-based market economy nurtured by pochteca-like traders.”

    (For the curious, see the citing below*, otherwise I’ll just call it ‘Emerson’.)

    What this tells me is (what I’ve been telling myself, but since it was only me, I didn’t bring it up before), we need to adopt the word ‘pochteca’ to describe all long distance traders of the natural world before the European invasion.

    Pochteca currently means narrowly and specifically an Aztec long distance trader.

    By the way, I have a fictional rendition of a pochteca (using my larger definition) from the Seri Tribe on the eastern shore of the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California) in Mexico. DNA testing of human remains found in a Hopewell mound in Ohio identified the source as Seri, along with bones of a Yakima in Washington and a MicMac of New Brunswick. There were others from far away places and since they were buried as honorables, they were probably long distance traders who I suggest we call pochteca.

    My argument is, we currently know it as a word for New World long distance traders but only the Aztec. Now just drop the Aztec-specific aspect. We’ve already done this with ‘canoe’ and ‘barbecue’, both Carib originally. When we say ‘canoe’ we don’t restrict its meaning to a Carib canoe. No, we’ve grown the word and made it bigger and broader. It’s now shared with the world. The same should be done with ‘pochteca’.

    James Porter’s use of ‘pochteca-like’ tells me this formation is both acceptable and wide-spread. Ergo, it is necessary. Why not just drop the ‘-like’ and name it simply ‘pochteca’?

   Here’s the new dictionary entry:

poch-tec-a (posh tek a)

Noun

1. An Aztec long distance trader

2. Any New World long distance trader, especially prior to European contact

PS. Hmm. It’s just come to me that researchers who have spent their careers studying the Aztec long distance trading system have a legitimate complaint with this suggestion. (I’m making it mandatory September 1, 2025, by the way.)

    I would ask that you take heart. In the dictionary entry above you have the primary meaning. In other words, you can legitimately refer to Aztecs as, indisputably, “the real pochteca”.

    And then there will be the added fame of the word. Come September (’25) there will be a ripple of scholarly popularity and your work will become more widely read.

* ’Implications of Sourcing Cahokia-Style Flint Clay Figures in the American Bottom and the Upper Mississippi River Valley’

Thomas E. Emerson, Randall E. Hughes, Mary R. Hynes and Sarah U. Wisserman

Published 2002 Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Vol 27, No 2.

PPS. For my paid subscribers, below that not impenitrable Paywall you will find my Pochteca Script. It is intended to be an animated feature so keep your mind animated as you read, and, hopefully, beyond.