For an image and trilingual descriptions of the cacahuacuahuitl, see the DFC.
Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex), Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MiBACT, 1577. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa, bk. 11, fol. 123r. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/123r . Accessed 13 November 2025.
"The cacahoaquáhuitl is a tree about the size of a citron tree, and with similar leaves, except that these are larger and wider, with oblong fruit that looks like a large melon, but striped and red, called cacahoacentli, which contains the seed, cacáhoatl, which as we said, serves for money among the Mexicans and makes a very pleasant drink." (Central Mexico, 1571–1615)
The Mexican Treasury: The Writings of Dr. Francisco Hernández, ed. Simon Varey, transl. Rafael Chabrán, Cynthia L. Chamberlin, and Simon Varey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 108.