citlalin popoca (TR44v)

This colorful painted version of a comet (citlalin popoca, the star smokes) is being called an example of iconography here that is not precisely glossed. However, there is some confidence that we can call it citlalin popoca thanks to the terms in our Online Nahuatl Dictionary, and the way this sign compares to actual glyphs (see below). The star (citlalin) that represents the comet is a European-influenced, white, eight-point star in a blue sky. This big star is surrounded by other stars that are painted as white circles in the same blue sky (ilhuicatl). The sky has a yellow band around it, a detail that harkens back to much earlier Nahua ways of painting an ilhuicatl. See the popocatetl example below for an older sky shape. Arising from the star are five volutes of dark gray, gold, and red; these point to the verb used to describe something that emits smoke (popoca).