mazatl (Mdz42r)
This iconographic example refers to deerskins that were provided as tributes, a type of taxation (in kind, in this case). We include the deerskin in this lexicon for the examples it provides of the nature of the deer hide itself, the head, and the antlers. The texturing of the hide involves small hash marks. The hide is a yellowish brown in the region of the back, and it fades to white where it would have covered the abdomen. The antlers are white and the hooves are black. The animal's eye (in profile) is closed.
Stephanie Wood
The preservation of the head (with antlers) and the hooves suggests that this deerskin was used for more than just the hide or leather. It may be that keeping the head attached meant that it could be worn by a human, such as a dancer. The "danza del venado" or deer dance is still very much alive today, and images of this can be found from the far north (e.g. Yaqui) to the Maya zone. The circular holes on the edges of the hide may have been placed there so that the skin could be laced and tied onto a human. In our dictionary, we cite an example of a deerskin "cape," which proves that skins were worn. The preciosity of the antlers is also suggested by the fact that some antlers in the Codex Mendoza are colored turquoise (see below, right). Mazatl was also a boys' name.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
maza(tl), deer or deerskin, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mazatl
Codex Mendoza, folio 42 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 94 of 188.
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).
