Itzcoatl (Verg38v)

This compound Nahuatl hieroglyph is a black-line drawing of the personal name Itzcoatl (a famous ruler’s name, taken here by a male tribute payer). The three elements of the compound include an arrow with obsidian blades (itztli) of the type (rectangular) that one will find embedded in the macuahuitl war club. Below the arrow is a pottery jug (comitl) and, to the left of that, a stream of water (atl) with four little sprays, each one ending in alternating turbinate shells and droplets or beads. These latter elements provide the phonetic syllables -co- and -atl- that combine to form -coatl (snake, serpent) in a way that disguises that the name has something to do with the reptile that was so prominent in the Nahua religion and whose lasting significance upset the colonial clergy. Serious events in 1539 may have made Nahua tlacuilos more cautious when writing and painting about aspects of their faith. See Patricia Lopes Don for information about the Inquisition case against don Carlos Ometochtli, a Chichimecatecuhtli (or Chichimecateuctli) executed in late 1539, in Bonfires of Culture, 2010. Bradley Benton (The Lords of Tetzcoco, 2017, 46) also writes that the case “demonstrates that blatant disregard for Christianity had serious consequences.”