Chicome Coatl (TR8r)

Chicome Coatl (TR8r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This iconographic example of Chicome Coatl (Seven Serpent) shows a female figure seated on a bench with red and turquoise-blue legs that curve toward the underside of the bench. She does not sit on her legs the way many human women do. The figure is shown in profile, looking toward the viewer's left. She wears elaborate regalia with many feathers--especially what appear to be quetzalli--and clothing of various colors.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

This divine force had a calendrical name, 7-Coatl (7-Serpent). It was an older sister of the rain deities called Tlaloqueh. [Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, transl. Thelma Sullivan, 1997, 98.] This deity or divine force also had an association with food (especially maize) and beverages. [Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 1, 1950, p. 4.]

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

chicome covatl

Gloss Normalization: 

Chicome Coatl (or Chicomecoatl)

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Telleriano-Remensis, Codex (TR)
Date of Manuscript: 

ca. 1550–1563

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
calendrics
deity name/theonym
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Corn, Maize
Feathers
Food, Eating, Cooking
Gender (female)
Jewelry, Crowns, or other Adornment
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Religion (Indigenous)
Time, Calendar, Frequency
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
blue (turquoise)
brown
green (light)
pink
red
white/neutral
yellow or golden
Shapes and Perspectives: 
facing left
profile view
Keywords: 

feathers, plumas, seats, dates, fechas, calendario, serpientes, serpents, snakes, víboras

Museum & Rare Book Comparisons: 
Museum/Rare Book Notes: 

Chicomecoatl. According signage in the Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Salón Mexica, "this sculpture of the corn goddess dressed in a beautiful headdress...wears an elegant pectoral characteristic of the deity and on the back her calendrical name 'Seven Serpent,' Chicomecoatl." Photograph by Robert Haskett, 14 February 2023.

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

Chicome coatl, a deity or goddess, "Seven Snake" (a calendrical name), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chicome-coatl
chicome, seven, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chicome
coa(tl), snake/serpent, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/coatl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Siete Serpiente

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Telleriano-Remensis Codex, folio 8 recto, MS Mexicain 385, Gallica digital collection, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8458267s/f41.item.zoom

Image Source, Rights: 

The non-commercial reuse of images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is free as long as the user is in compliance with the legislation in force and provides the citation: “Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France” or “Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: