olmaitl (FCbk8f30r)

olmaitl (FCbk8f30r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring two drumsticks with rubber tips (olmaitl), 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 the drumsticks at an angle. They are brown, and probably wooden. attached to one another with a red (perhaps leather) tie which is blocked from slipping off the ends with a knob at the end of each stick. At the business end of the drumsticks, one can see a black material made of thin strips wrapped and woven around the wood.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Drumsticks (olmaitl) were more often used for playing the teponaztli (horizontal, hollowed log) than the huehuetl (standing drum), but one example of a drum with a stick is shown below. Perhaps that was a European drum, even though it was called a Nahuatl name (huehuetzilin).

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:

Music, Song, Dance

Rubber

Wood, wooden things

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black

brown

red

Shapes and Perspectives:

tied, bound, or bundled

woven

Keywords:

baqueta, baquetas, goma, tambores, tocar

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

olma(itl), a drumstick with a rubber tip, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/olmaitl
ol(li), rubber, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/olin
ma(itl), hand, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/olmaitl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

los palillos con hule

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 8: Kings and Lords", fol. 30r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/8/folio/30r/images/0 Accessed 10 August 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: