macuahuitl (FCbk6f212r)

macuahuitl (FCbk6f212r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring an obsidian embedded club (macuahuitl) 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 stick or club (probably wooden) at an angle, leaning toward the viewer’s left. Rectangular obsidian blades are embedded into this weapon. If the blades run all the way through the wood, there would be four, but if they are only shallowly penetrating the club, then there are eight blades.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The term entered Mexican Spanish as macana. Sometimes this term (macuahuitl) would combine with tepoz- and refer to a sword. As visible here in the contextualizing image, this weapon is often paired with a shield as a sign for war or conflict. Otherwise, a hand appears, holding onto the club. This provides the phonetic start (ma-, from maitl, hand) to the term macuahuitl.

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:

Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry

War or Conflict

Weapons, Shields, Armor

Wood, wooden things

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

diagonal or angled

rectangular

Keywords:

garrote, arma, madera, obsidiana

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

macuahui(tl), a club with obsidian blades embedded in it, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/macuahuitl
ma(itl), hand, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/maitl
cuahu(itl), wood, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuahuitl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

la macana

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 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy", fol. 212r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/6/folio/212r/images/0. Accessed 10 July 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: