Temazcal, Codex Magliabechiano, 16th Century

Temazcal, Codex Magliabechiano, 16th Century

The Mesoamerican bath; known as temazcal in Spanish, consists of a room, often in the form of a small dome, with an exterior firebox known as texictle that heats a small portion of the room's wall made of volcanic rocks; after this wall has been heated, water is poured on it to produce steam, an action known as tlasas, a person in charge then directs the steam, that accumulates on the upper portion of the room, to the bathers who are lying on the ground using a bough, with which he later gives them a massage, then the bathers scrub themselves with a small flat river stone and finally the person in charge introduces buckets with water with soap and grass used to rinse. This bath had also ritual importance, and was vinculated to the goddess Toci; it is also therapeutical, when medicinal herbs are used in the water for the tlasas. It is still used in Mexico. Image appeared in the Codex Magliabecchiano, a pictorial Aztec codex created during the 16th century, primarily a religious document. Its 92 pages are almost a glossary of cosmological and religious elements.

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