Café con Nawatl: The Metate

What’s up, everybody? It’s your boy Kurly Tlapoyawa, the hardcore archaeologist, and I’m writing this from deep inside occupied Pueblo territory in the beautiful state of New Mexico, sitting in the shadow of Oku Pin (Also known as the Sandia Mountains). This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. And that is a series of short segments on the Nawatl (or Nahuatl) language that I call Café con Nawatl.

Now, I should make it clear that this isn’t a language class. What I want to do is touch upon some elements of the Nawatl language that I find interesting, and that might help you understand and appreciate the language a little bit more. Especially if you’re a Mexican Spanish speaker, and especially if you happen to be an archaeologist (though being an archaeologist is hardly necessary).

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of ground stone analysis. Ground stone is exactly what it sounds like: it’s a piece of stone that has been ground (surprise!). It’s been worked to accomplish various things, usually grinding food. So it’s used for food preparation. And the most common type of ground stone is the metate, and what people call the mano (the hand stone). Now, there are different types of metates. There is the slab metate, which is also known as a flat metate. There is the basin…