Chicomaca (MH648v)

This is a calendrical name from the 260-day religious, divinatory calendar, the tonalpohualli. If not specifically referring to the calendar, the name can also refer to a medicinal herb called chicomacatl, which probably still also has associations with the calendar. Originally, a calendrical name such as this would have shown the number seven in a notation of dots. Perhaps to disguise the fact that this was a calendrical name, the pot takes the place of the notation. Serious events in 1539 may have made Nahua tlacuilos more cautious when writing and painting about aspects of their faith. See Patricia Lopes Don for information about the Inquisition case against don Carlos Ometochtli, a Chichimecatecuhtli (or Chichimecateuctli) executed in late 1539, in Bonfires of Culture, 2010. Bradley Benton (The Lords of Tetzcoco, 2017, 46) also writes that the case “demonstrates that blatant disregard for Christianity had serious consequences.”