maxtlatl (Mdz43r)

We cannot see the strap that would have tied this loincloth around the waist. This image, an example of iconography found in the tributes section of in the Codex Mendoza, is provided as support for the reading of maxtlatl in the glyph for the place name, Amaxtlan, which is simply white with some horizontal black lines. This more colorful example is associated with a place called Maxtlac, as indicated by the gloss that appears on the same folio (43 recto). The loincloth in the compound glyph for Amaxtlan is white with black horizontal lines forming the design at the bottom of the cloth strips. This iconographic example has no designs at the bottom, but it involves combined strips of cloth in multiple colors--yellow, turquoise, red and green, going from left to right. Loincloths were worn by men, in front of their genitals. A waist belt held them on. Differences in designs of maxtlatl probably related to social status (loincloths for the lower social strata were made from maguey fiber according to Henry B. Nicholson and ‎Eloise Quiñones Keber in the Art of Aztec Mexico, 1983, p. 183), and perhaps also ethnicity and/or occupation. On some occasions, symbolic loincloths were carried in religious processions, such as those described by Kay Read, Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos, 1998, p. 81, and Eloise Quiñones Keber in Representing Aztec Ritual, 2002, p. 124.