ichtequi (FCbk4f60v)

This iconographic detail from the Digital Florentine Codex (Book 4, f. 60v) shows one or two men in the act of stealing a family’s possessions. The contextualizing image shows a man lying down holding his head and a woman over him who is apparently crying. The theft involves a large rectangular container made from woven petlatl material (apparently a petlacalli). The box-like basket is open slightly, and the contents may be green and yellow beads strung with something red. The two men holding the woven box wear capes and loincloths. The capes have some three-dimensionality. The keywording in the Digital Florentine Codex also describes their hair as long and loose with the term tzonquemitl. The quemitl could could look like dreadlocks at time, such as one in the Edge of the Cedars Museum in Blanding, Utah, that was made from macaw feathers and imported from Mesoamerica in pre-contact times. But perhaps even the ones made of full-size hanging feathers could resemble long hair.