Credited to Mexico. It is not known exactly where or when papermaking began in Mesoamerica. Some researchers argue that the Maya first spread bark paper making, though Hans Lenz held that Maya paper was probably not the later amate.
How it began
Amate, from the Nahuatl amatl, is a bark paper that has been manufactured in Mexico since precontact times. It is not known exactly where or when papermaking began in Mesoamerica. The oldest known amate paper dates to 75 CE, a crumpled piece found in a shaft tomb and possibly associated with a scribe. Stone beaters used to make it are known from the 6th century CE and are most often found where amate trees grow.
How it works
The inner bark of trees of the fig and mulberry family is soaked in water for a day or more to soften it. According to early Spanish accounts, the finer inner fibers were then separated from the coarse outer ones and pounded into flat sheets. The beaters are rectangular or round stones, usually volcanic, with grooves on one or both sides to macerate the fibers. Otomi artisans still use beaters of this kind.
Who pushed back
After the Spanish conquest bark paper lost its value as tribute. The Spanish preferred European paper, and amate's link to Indigenous religion led to its being banned, as part of a campaign that included the mass burning of codices. It did not disappear. Paper went on being made secretly for ritual use, mainly in rugged Otomi areas of Puebla and Veracruz that were far from Spanish authority.
What changed first
Bark paper was easier to obtain than animal skins and easier to work than other fibers, and it was light and simple to transport. It was used most widely under the Aztec Triple Alliance, when more than 40 villages made it and handed it over as tribute. It served for codices and for ritual objects. Of roughly 500 surviving codices, about 16 predate the conquest, and 4 of those are on bark paper.
Where it stands today
By the mid-20th century the craft survived only in a few towns such as San Pablito, an Otomi village in Puebla, where until the 1960s it was made by shamans. Otomi makers then began to sell it in Mexico City, and Nahua painters from Guerrero adopted it for paintings. Amate is now one of the most widely distributed Mexican handcrafts, in Mexico and abroad.
