huauhtli (FCbk4f72v)
This iconographic example is meant to provide a scene that will contextualize Nahuatl hieroglyphs that show amaranth (huauhtli). This scene comes from the Digital Florentine Codex, which names the plant food as huauhtli in its list of keywords. The scene shows bundles of multicolored huauhtli stalks in the background. In the foreground a man sits in a profile view on a petlatl (woven mat), facing the viewer’s right. He is removing the amaranth grain from the stalks. The grain is spread out somewhat on the mat.
Stephanie Wood
In some hieroglyphs, huauhtli is added to tree trunks (cuahuitl) as a phonetic complement (huauh-) for the stem cuauh-. Thus, some glyphs that show huauhtli attach the sprig with the grain on it to a tree trunk, which obscures the nature of the full huauhtli plant. This scene has its focus on the stalks and on the grain that has been removed from the stalks. But the contextualizing image shows the relative size and nature of the full plants. The fact that huauhtli could serve as a personal name (e.g., MH784v) seems to underline its importance in the culture. It might also say something about the baby being lengthy or the child tall.
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
granos, comida
el amaranto
Stephanie Wood
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 4: The Soothsayers", fol. 72v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/4/folio/72v/images/ca1316c4-95... Accessed 29 June 2025.
Images of the digitized Florentine Codex are made available under the following Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International). For print-publication quality photos, please contact the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana ([email protected]). The Library of Congress has also published this manuscript, using the images of the World Digital Library copy. “The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to use and reuse.”
