cihuapilli (TK218r)

This painted example of iconography refers to an elite Nahua woman (cihuapilli) named doña Catalina. She was married to Tlilpotonqui, the tlatoani of Tepetlaoztoc. They lived in the town that created this manuscript as a protest against abuses committed by local Spaniards. The text does not refer to doña Catalina as a cihuapilli, but her honorific title and the narrative about her make it clear. The mercantile agent (factor) who had been given the grant of encomienda over this town was allowed to demand and collect tribute in kind and in labor. But the demands were excessive. At one point, the Spaniard asked if he could have the wife of the town’s leader, the tlatoani named Tlilpotonqui. When Tlilpotonqui refused, he was taken away to the encomendero’s ranch and made to watch the sheep for eighty days as a punishment. Doña Catalina sits in the classic posture for married women, with her legs underneath her, and she wears the typical woman’s hairstyle, the neaxtlahualli. It divides the hair into two large locks that are wrapped twisted up, resulting in two points above the woman’s forehead. This cihuapilli also appropriately wears a finely designed blouse (huipilli) and a skirt.