Mesoamerican iconography shows the curious idea that trees or other large plants can grow in or from humans. Here is one example from page 34 of the post-classic Codex Fejervary-Mayer thought to have originated in Veracruz.
![]() |
| Aztec God of Rain, Tlaloc, Tending a Human Maize Plant |
And here is another example from page 33 of the same Codex Fejervary-Mayer.
![]() |
Aztec Goddess of Water & Childbirth, Chalchiuhtlicue,
Tending a Human Maize Plant |
This example is from the post-classic Codex Borgia thought to have originated in Puebla.
![]() |
| Tree Growing from Skeletal Figure Codex Borgia 53 |
This is of interest, of course, because the Book of Mormon refers to anthropomorphic trees.
Alma 32:28 talks about planting a seed in one's heart that grows into a tree
Alma 32:41. Alma may have been alluding to an existing Mesoamerican image, painting a mental picture that his Zoramite hearers in Antionum would have undersood. This, for example, is page 3 of the Dresden Codex which dates to ca. AD 1100 and comes from Chichen Itza, Yucatan. It depicts the tree of life growing out of the sacrificed body of the maize god.
![]() |
| Anthropomorphic Tree from Dresden Codex 3 |
Scholars think the Dresden is a copy of an older codex originally painted ca. AD 800. This makes it the oldest pre-Columbian book currently known to science.
See the article "
Light from LA" point #38 for another depiction of an anthropomorphic tree from Yucatan.
