ixtlilmaca (FCbk8f34v)

This iconographic example, featuring a Nahua priest wearing black face paint (ixtlilmaca) is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making potential 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 priest in a profile view, facing right. He has long hair pulled back with a red tie at the back of his neck. The face paint ends just below his jaw line. But the contextualizing image seems to show some black paint on his legs, too. It also shows that he is attending an event where a man’s heart will be extracted in a religious offering. In fact, four priests are attending, all dressed in white cloaks with crossing red lines. The cloaks are tied at the shoulder. One priest cuts into the chest of a war captive, and another holds the man’s legs. The man selected for this record points (mapilhuia, or mahpilhuia with the glottal stop) at the captive on the ground. A fourth priest holds a devil, which shows European/Christian influence in Nahuas’ thinking about their own divinities, as the divinity that once might have been there might have been receiving the sacrificial offering. But this devil (in a frontal-face view) has a tail that is a serpent, with the serpent’s head at the tip of the tail/serpent body.