Cuetzpal (MH634r)

This is a day sign in the tonalpohualli, 260-day divinatory calendar, and calendrics figured prominently in Nahuas' religious views of the cosmos. So, a person such as this man, Juan Cuetzpal, with a baptismal first name, may have been born on a day with this name. Gordon Whittaker (personal communication, April 2023) suggests that Quetzpal may be a dialectical variant for Cuetzpal. In the Matrícula de Huexotzinco, there are variations in the feet of the animal, sometimes having prominent toes, and sometimes not. Other manuscripts have turquoise-colored lizards, and the one in the Codex Magliabechiano has a protruding red tongue. This one may be painted black as a way of providing a clue to the name ending in -pal, which is short for the color black, and therefore may be serving as a phonetic indicator.