Chapoltepec (Osu1v)
This colorful compound glyph for the place name Chapoltepec ("Grasshopper Hill") comes from folio 1 verso of the Codex Osuna (image 5). It shows the classical bell-shaped sign for hill or mountain. The hill is green. It has a red horizontal line--surrounded by white--near its base. This is the site where a natural spring might emerge. On top of the hill is a grasshopper in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. Its legs are bent and its wings are raised slightly. It has two horizontal, straight antennae coming off its head.
Stephanie Wood
For other renditions of grasshoppers, see below. Chapulines (as the term entered Spanish) are still an item in the Mexican diet.
Stephanie Wood
[C]hapultepec
Chapoltepec (Chapultepec today)
Stephanie Wood
1551–1565
Stephanie Wood
hills, mountains, grasshoppers, cerros, montañas, chapulines
Stone carving of a chapolin found in the Museo de Escultura Mexica, Tlalnepantla, Mexico. The signage mentions how the insect can jump, how it is a food, and how it is considered a harbinger of calamities associated with drought and hunger. Photo by Stephanie Wood, 16 August 2023.
Library of Congress Online Catalog and the World Digital Library, Osuna Codex, or Painting of the Governor, Mayors, and Rulers of Mexico, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07324/, image 5. The original is located in the Biblioteca Nacional de España.
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