chitatli (TK220v)
This painted example of iconography features a gold jewel in the form of a net bag (chitatli) that was often used for carrying food while one was out and about. The jewel has 13 bells hanging from its lower edge. It has a somewhat thick rope around it that also creates a handle. The netting involves thinner cords that run diagonally across the bag but also cross at right angles with one another. The whole of this jewel is painted a gold color. At the top of the handle of the chitatli is a red (perhaps leather) tie, so that the jewel could be attached and worn on clothing or the like. Four additional jewels with chitatli designs appear on folio 226 verso.
Stephanie Wood
In the four comparison hieroglyphs below, the chitatli is an element in the personal name Cuauhchita (which, on the surface looks like “Wooden Net Bag” or “Eagle Net Bag”). But it may be serving the phonetic role of the disyllabogram -chita- in those names. There is a bird attested in the Gran Diccionario Náhuatl called the cuauhchitoa>, for example, which might be a diminutive (cuauhchiton) version of the bird behind the name Cuauhchita. Further research is needed. At any rate, the use of the chitatli as a motif in jewelry may suggest it is a well-known item for carrying things.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1556
Jeff Haskett-Wood
joya, joyas, oro, piel, bolsas, cargar, manija, redes, cascabel, cascabeles, cordón, cordones, soga, sogas, cuerda, cuerdas, cordel, cordeles, atado, colgante
chita(tli), a net bag, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chitatli
cuauhchito, a type of bird, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuauhchito
la bolsa de red
Stephanie Wood
The Codex Kingsborough, also known as the Códice de Tepetlaoztoc, and the Memorial de los indios de Tepetlaoztoc, is not on display. It was transferred from the British Library and is now held by the British Museum. It is shared on line at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Am2006-Drg-13964
©The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. Please also cite the <em>Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphsem>, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Projects, 2020-present) and this URL.
