caballeriza (Osu11r)

This painting of a place for raising horses (caballeriza, which entered Nahuatl as a loan from Spanish) comes from the Codex Osuna, folio 11 recto (or Image 24). It shows a bird’s eye view of a stable with feeding troughs and an adobe brick wall. The wall is half a rectangle, vertical, and it has three rows of bricks. It also shows an elevation view of six horses in profile, facing toward the viewer’s right. The horses are tied to the structure. They alternate between light and dark gray. Some of them have a front leg raised slightly, as though they are in movement. They grass they are meant to consume has been provided by the surrounding pueblos. Glyphs for the place names of these pueblos appear running up the right edge of the page.