Strictly
speaking, pochteca were members of the elite hereditary merchant
class of the Mexica (Aztecs). The pochteca supplied luxury goods to the
Mexica rulers--because of their special status they were allowed to venture
beyond the boundaries of the Empire. It has also been suggested that
the pochteca acted as spies. Whatever the case, they ranged far and
wide throughout Mesoamerica--and probably ventured into the Greater
Southwest and the Southeastern regions of what is now the United States.
The pochteca had their own patron deity, Yacatecuhtli (Nahuatl, "Goer-Lord"). Popular in central Mexico during the Postclassic, Yacatecuhtli's Maya equivalent was Ek Chuah ( Yucatec, "Black Star"), god of merchants and cacao. Yacatecuhtli and Ek Chuah share certain symbols, namely the staff (cane), the fan, and the backpack.
After reading Sahagun's Historyof Ancient Mexico, Elsie Clews Parsons detected parallels between the Aztec and Pueblo cultures:
Aztec traders, traveling men, carried walking sticks or canes, solid light black canes, which they would tie in a bundle and venerate as the image of their god with food, flowers, and incense. On returning from the extraordinary trips they made, the cane was placed in the calpulli or "district church" and later in the house shrine, where before eating the merchant offered it food. We may compare the crook sticks which are placed on Hopi altars to represent the deceased members of the society, and the crook sticks in the prayer-stick bundles, as well as the canes of the Zuni and Isleta war chiefs. "Black cane old man" is the name used in referring to one of the Isleta war chiefs. We recall that the Pueblo canes of office are sprinkled with meal or with "holy water" and have a distinctly fetishistic character. They are placed on the altar. The Pueblos have always asserted that the war chief canes "came up with them" i.e. anteceded the Lincoln or Spanish canes or varas; Sahagun's account of the Aztec canes, not only the canes of the merchants but of the war chief stick, seems to corroborate this tradition. I surmise that we have not only in New Mexico, but throughout old Mexico, an exceedingly interesting instance of acculturation between Spanish vara and the walking-stick of the Aztec merchant guild chief.--Elsie Clews Parsons, "Some Aztec and Pueblo Parallels", American Anthropologist 35 (1933): 611-31. Reprinted in The Mesoamerican Southwest, University of Southern Illinois (1974)
Despite a certain naivete and errors in her text--the calpulli was the Mexica clan unit, not the "district church"--Parson's suggestions are still intriguing.
The pochteca were but one manifestation of an extremely old Mesoamerican tradition of long-distance trade. Whether or not the pochteca and their predecessors transferred more than goods and information has long been debated. Because I prefer to perceive the pochteca in the broader sense as representative of the bearers of new ideas from afar, I have named this website after them.
The POCHTECA logo was adapted from a fiqure on a Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff (Hokokam) vessel.I found it impossible to resist the iconographic possibilities...
llustration adapted from Spencer and Jennings et al, The Native Americans: Ethnology and Backgrounds of the North American Indians, 2nd edition,1977, Figure 37, p.252
S.M. Stoermer 1998