摘要：The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) and its seeds have a long and varied history of use in Mesoamerica,
reaching back at least as far as the Formative period in the Gulf and Pacific coast regions. This paper considers the use
of cacao in Tarascan society during the Late Postclassic period (1350–1522 AD). Using chemical and archaeological
evidence, we demonstrate that cacao consumption was associated with the well-known Tarascan spouted vessel form
and then contextualize this finding with the aid of linguistic and documentary evidence taken from sixteenth-century
Purepecha dictionaries.
