huictli (FCbk10f18r)

huictli (FCbk10f18r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring an agricultural tool, a digging stick (huictli), 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 a huictli at an angle, with its pointed end sticking into a clump of grass. The coloring of the ground below the grass seems to suggest European artistic influence.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

This was the most common agricultural tool of early rural Nahua culture. It appears many times in this collection. Sometimes it represents the term for work (tequitl), or agricultural laborer (tlaquehualli), or the specific act of breaking up weeds (Zacamol).

Evidence that the huictli came to be called a coa in Mexican Spanish comes from the Spanish-language text in the Florentine Codex.
Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 113v, Sahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Transcribed and translated with notes by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. 2nd rev. ed. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research / University of Utah Press, 1950–82. Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/113v Accessed 11 November 2025.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Agriculture, Gardens, Stock Raising

Technology (all types), plus Tools

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

brown

tan

yellow or golden

Shapes and Perspectives:

pointed (see also spiky)

Other Cultural Influences:

Spanish/European

Keywords:

coas, palos, agricultura

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

huic(tli), indigenous digging stick with a flat blade, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huictli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el coa, o el palo de excavación

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 10: The People", fol. 18r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/10/folio/18r/images/0 Accessed 5 September 2025.

Image Source, Rights:

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.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: