callan (Osu7v)

This painted iconographic example features a Nahua family on a parcel surrounding their house (callan). This square piece of land outside the house has been marked in the four corners with wooden stakes. The contextualizing image shows a Spaniard pounding the wooden stakes (“tzotzona estaca” in the nearby Nahuatl text, involving a loanword from Spanish). The Nahua man (called a “macehualtzintli” in the text) on the property is wearing a white belted tunic and a red-trimmed cape, clothing that suggests some social status. He also points with his index finger, and a colored speech scroll comes from his mouth, further indicators of his status. He is speaking to the Spaniard who is putting in the stakes. Sitting on the lower edge of the property is a woman in relatively fine clothing (with red trim). Her blouse comes to a point at the front along the bottom edge, which may be a quechquemitl. She has a long tunic underneath it. The overblouse with the point also has a rectangular reinforcement under the V-neck, much like a huipilli has. The two little boys wear red-trimmed capes like their father.