Acoyotl (MH522v)

The name Water-Coyote remains to be analyzed more fully, but there is an original feathered shield in the Welt Museum, Vienna, that has what may be a coyote (it looks much like the one from folio 5 verso of the Codex Mendoza, below). Seemingly emerging from its mouth is an undulating strip of water combined with a strip of fire, representing the teoatl tlachinolli metaphor relating to sacred warfare. The water and fire strips are not entwined, as is often the case, but the flames are clearly flames and the stream of water has two shells at its tip. The animal's coat is water-colored, and there is a swirl in the blue feathers that is reminiscent to the way water glyphs can swirl. [To see the image of the shield, see the study from the curator of the Vienna museum as pubished in Mexicolore in 2011.] Water-Coyote is also a figure in stories from Native communities in what is now the U.S. Southwest.