cuetzpalin (FCbk10f113v)

This iconographic example, featuring the lizard (cuetzpalin), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the keywords chosen by the team behind the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss. This example shows one lizard on a grinding stone (metlatl) and three more on the ground nearby. According to the DFC title for this scene, the woman is in the process of grinding the cuetzpalin using her hand-held grinding stone (metlapilli) on the larger stone to add to urine and provide the mixture as medicine to someone who has had a fall. The contextualizing image shows a man who has fallen and another who is drinking from a bowl (caxitl). The bowl includes a hieroglyph of water (atl, which could also mean urine) going toward his mouth. The woman wears a white cotton huipilli and skirt (cueitl), and these garments have some added lines and brown shading that gives them a three-dimensionality (showing the impact of European artistic methods on the Nahua tlacuilo). This is true, too, of the added landscaping.