namictli (Osu12v)

This painting from the Codex Osuna, folio 12 verso (or Image 27), shows the wife of Dr. Puga, who was a local Spaniard and a magistrate for the colony. We are calling this iconography, because it is not necessarily a glyph. According to the Nahuatl text, she beat or killed (the text uses the verb, mictia) the Nahua topile (constable of the Indigenous community) who appears in the contextualizing image. There, he is horizontal, stomach down, which is an abnormal position for a man. The trigger for the act had something to do with her dislike of some oranges that appear in the contextualizing image. The name of the topile was Miguel Chichimecatl, a man who was regularly mistreated, as shown elsewhere in this codex. In this scene the wife is grabbing him by the hair, similar to a capture of enemies in battle. His hair is brown, and he wears a white, long-sleeved shirt. She is shown in profile, facing right, and wearing a long, red, belted gown and a long white cloth (like a scarf) covering her hair.