cactli (Mdz13r)
This element has been carved from the compound glyph for the place name, Coyocac. This part of the larger glyph consists of a piece of footwear, drawn in black lines, with what may be leather laces or ties that are colored red. The sandal or shoe (huarache) has a support that comes up the back of the heel. It is shown in profile view, facing to the viewer's left.
Stephanie Wood
A fairly clear view of the cactli can be seen in the Codex Ixtlilxochitl, on folio 107 recto. The red leather ties are more visible in the cactli of that document. The word cacles (cacle, singular) is a loan from Nahuatl that can be found in Mexican Spanish today. Cacles are rough leather sandals, somewhat akin to a Tuscan-style leather sandal or semi-open shoe.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
shoes, sandals, huaraches, cacles, sandalias
cac(tli), shoe or sandal, huarache, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cactli
shoe or sandal
el zapato o la sandalia
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 13 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 36 of 188.
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).
