Ecapapalotl (MH566v)

Gabrielle Vail and ‎Christine Hernández (Re-Creating Primordial Time, 2013, ) describe Ehecatl as the wind aspect of Quetzalcoatl, and they note that Ehecatl "wears a buccal (duck) mask through which to blow wind." That the "beak" may have been perceived as a blowing device is supported by the glyph for Pitztli (below).

Ecatl (air, breath) is a word of its own, but it is also used sometimes as a short version of Ehecatl, with the reduplication of the first syllable, which changes it to "wind." A great many glyphs in this collection start with Eca- when one might expect Eheca-. We are preserving the proclivity of the gloss for Eca-, while also pointing to the likelihood of an unintentional oral abbreviation of Eheca- to Eca-.

Butterflies are significant in Nahua culture. There were butterfly songs, butterflies flew down from the top of the pole in the Volador event. Butterfly wing movement was equated with the patting of corn dough into tortillas. Obsidian was carved into butterflies. Capes had butterfly designs. See our Online Nahuatl Dictionary.